Join a dynamic team focused on advancing M365 Copilot, Outlook, Teams, and other productivity applications through cutting-edge AI innovation. This role offers unparalleled opportunities for learning, ownership, autonomy, and professional development. You will be instrumental in developing next-generation engineering infrastructure and tooling powered by AI.

Our Principal Applied Scientists are key to tackling complex challenges, from data ingestion and curation to fine-tuning models and prompts. You will drive the creation of purpose-built SLMs and infuse AI into productivity scenarios, ensuring scientific rigor and aligning research with business impact. Collaboration with Microsoft's AI platform and product teams is essential, as is leading feature crews with a growth mindset to embrace rapid advancements.

Microsoft is deeply committed to Responsible AI and digital safety. Team members are expected to operate within these frameworks, balancing rapid innovation with ethical considerations. This role requires a self-driven, proactive, and results-oriented individual capable of working with minimal supervision in a fast-paced environment focused on building products from the ground up. The M365 organization plays a critical role in enhancing end-user experiences with highly relevant search capabilities across the M365 ecosystem.

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will master broad research areas, understand relevant techniques, and serve as a team expert on industry trends and advancements. You'll translate research findings into strategic product direction by reviewing business and product requirements and incorporating research insights. Your role will involve ensuring scientific rigor, supporting method development, and applying expertise to achieve significant business impact.

You will also be a key player in fostering a research community by identifying and inspiring peers and new talent to join Microsoft. Building strong relationships and advocating for research initiatives will be crucial. Sharing research findings through industry outreach, collaborating with the academic community, and contributing to the recruiting pipeline are also important aspects of this position.

Documenting work and experimentation results is vital for promoting innovation. You will provide guidance on capturing processes and contribute to the development of ethics and privacy policies related to research processes and data collection.

To thrive in this role, candidates should possess a strong foundation in areas such as Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, or Electrical/Computer Engineering. A Bachelor's degree combined with at least 6 years of relevant experience in statistics, predictive analytics, or research is required. Alternatively, a Master's degree with 4+ years of experience, or a Doctorate with 3+ years of experience in a related field, is acceptable. Equivalent experience will also be considered.

Preferred qualifications include extensive experience (5+ years) in an AI research facility or working with AI-infused software services. A profound customer focus and a passion for delivering customer-centric solutions are highly valued. Proven ability to build effective and trusted relationships across diverse stakeholder groups is essential. Excellent communication and cross-group collaboration skills are a must, along with the agility to keep pace with rapid field innovations and creatively solve problems using novel techniques.

Experience in developing or working with highly scalable classifiers, ranking algorithms, and SLMs is a significant advantage. Specific academic backgrounds like a PhD in Computer Science with a Data Science focus, Mathematics, or Statistics, coupled with 3+ years of data-science experience, are particularly sought after. Master's degree holders with similar data-science experience requirements are also encouraged to apply, as are Bachelor's degree holders with 8+ years of extensive data-science experience.