Principal Applied Scientist

Job description

The Business and Industry Solutions (BIS) team is looking for a **Principal Applied Scientist** .

Do you want to shape the future of the autonomous enterprise and lead the development of intelligent, agent-first experiences that transform how businesses operate?

The Business and Industry Solutions (BIS) team is looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to drive innovation at the intersection of AI, experimentation, and enterprise systems.

In this role, you will design and evaluate autonomous agents that deliver measurable improvements in accuracy, latency, and cost-efficiency.

You’ll lead rapid experimentation cycles, develop robust evaluation frameworks, and apply advanced techniques like reinforcement learning to enable multi-step reasoning and decision-making.

You’ll collaborate across engineering, product, and partner teams to ensure agents are performant, secure, reliable, and extensible—empowering customers and partners to build on our platform.

This is your opportunity to influence the next generation of AI-native business applications and deliver real-world impact at scale.

The ideal candidate has prior expertise in natural language processing (NLP), with a strong foundation in large language model (LLM) development, evaluation, and fine-tuning.

They should have hands-on experience in applying advanced fine-tuning techniques—including instruction tuning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and tool-augmented generation—to build agents capable of multi-step reasoning and decision-making.

Familiarity with prompt/context engineering, context-aware orchestration, and integrating LLMs with external tools and APIs is essential.

The candidate should be comfortable working in a fast-paced, experimentation-driven environment, leveraging both offline and online evaluation methods to iterate rapidly and optimize agent behavior.

An understanding of the challenges and opportunities in building AI-native enterprise applications will be key to success in this role.

**Responsibilities**

+ Drive strategic impact by identifying and leading high-leverage data science and analytics initiatives across multiple product domains.
+ Lead the development and deployment of advanced model fine-tuning pipelines, leveraging Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) to align AI system behavior with human intent and improve performance in complex, real-world enterprise scenarios.
+ Guide strategic direction and investment decisions by owning complex, end-to-end projects that blend technical depth with organizational influence.
+ Build alignment and trust across leadership and cross-functional teams through clear, persuasive communication and collaborative engagement.
+ Design and implement robust measurement systems, experimentation frameworks, and causal inference methodologies tailored to dynamic AI systems and enterprise-scale environments.
+ Mentor and elevate the data science community by championing best practices, nurturing talent, and cultivating a collaborative, high-performance culture.
+ Harness AI to accelerate workflows and amplify team productivity through intelligent automation and innovation.

**Qualifications**

**Required Qualifications:**

+ Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ 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 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
+ OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
+ OR equivalent experience.
+ 5+ years experience developing and deploying AI/ML products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.

**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.



**Preferred Qualifications:**

+ Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 9+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR equivalent experience.
+ 5+ years experience creating publications (e.g., patents, libraries, peer-reviewed academic papers).
+ 2+ years experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research/industry community as an invited speaker.
+ 5+ years experience conducting research as part of a research program (in academic or industry settings).
+ 3+ years experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team.
+ 3+ years experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.

Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year.

There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay .

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until October 24, 2025.

#BICJobs

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer.

Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances.

If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .

Required Skill Profession

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