Senior Applied Scientist

Responsibilities

• Advance the science: Design experiments, validate metrics, and build ML pipelines for reinforcement learning, advanced reasoning techniques, and LLMs while ensuring Responsible AI and Privacy-Preserving ML best practices.
• Drive product innovation: Collaborate with Engineering, Product, and Design teams to transform research insights into scalable Microsoft 365 Copilot features used by millions.
• Cross-team collaboration: Partner with Microsoft Research, Azure, AI platform teams, and product teams to integrate cutting-edge research into production systems.
• Champion customer-focused impact: Engage with customers, analyze user feedback and telemetry data to identify pain points and prioritize high-impact ML improvements.
• Technical leadership: Mentor junior scientists and engineers while establishing ML best practices across the product organization.
• Define and measure success: Create KPIs and success metrics that align with business objectives and track product performance in production.
• Stay at the research forefront: Contribute to the applied science community through publications, and internal knowledge sharing. Publishing is encouraged, though not required.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics predictive analytics, research)
• OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR equivalent experience.
• Excellent problem solving and data analysis skills, with expertise in developing or applying predictive analytics, statistical modelling, data mining, or machine learning algorithms, especially at scale.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to simplify and explain complex ideas.

Other Requirements:
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.