Principal Applied Science Manager

Overview

The Microsoft Monetization organization powers the advertising marketplace and monetization ecosystem across Microsoft properties, helping connect users, advertisers, publishers, and partners through AI-driven advertising solutions. The organization invests heavily in machine learning, large-scale optimization, and generative AI technologies to improve advertiser outcomes, user experiences, and business growth.

Within Monetization, the Creative team is responsible for building AI-powered solutions that help advertisers create, personalize, understand, and optimize ad creatives. The team develops technologies across text, image, and multimodal experiences, including asset generation, personalization, creative understanding, image enhancement, quality evaluation, and creative optimization. These innovations help advertisers improve engagement, campaign performance, and ROI through scalable AI-driven solutions.

We are seeking a Principal Applied Science Manager with proven experience in leading and growing a team of Applied Scientists driving innovation in creative generation, personalization, creative understanding, quality evaluation, and optimization.

This role offers the opportunity to shape future advertiser-facing AI experiences, influence long-term science investments, and bring cutting-edge AI innovations into production at Microsoft scale.

In this this role you will drive the science strategy and execution for text, image, and multimodal creative solutions, including asset generation, personalization, creative understanding, and optimization, helping advertisers improve campaign performance through advanced AI and machine learning technologies.

This is a highly cross-functional role with broad impact across Ads, Shopping, and Copilot experiences, requiring a balance of technical depth, people leadership, product thinking, and strategic execution.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of Applied Scientists focused on text, image, and multimodal creative AI.
• Define and execute the science roadmap for creative generation, personalization, creative understanding, and optimization.
• Drive innovation using LLMs, multimodal foundation models, and generative AI technologies.
• Partner with Engineering, Product Management, Design, and TPM teams to deliver impactful advertiser-facing solutions.
• Establish metrics and experimentation frameworks to measure business and customer impact.
• Translate business opportunities into scalable AI solutions that improve advertiser ROI and user engagement.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, and customer focus.
• Communicate strategy, results, and recommendations to senior leadership and cross-functional partners.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

• OR Masters 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 Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

• OR equivalent experience.

• 3+ years of people management experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 12+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

• OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)

• OR equivalent experience.

• Experience developing and shipping large-scale machine learning solutions.

• Experience leading and growing teams of scientists, engineers, or other technical professionals.

• Proven expertise in machine learning, experimentation, and data-driven decision making.

• Experience driving cross-functional initiatives and influencing stakeholders across organizations.

• Excellent communication, leadership, and execution skills.

• Experience with generative AI, LLMs, multimodal AI, personalization, computer vision, or creative optimization systems.

• Experience building large-scale advertising, recommendation, ranking, personalization, or content generation products.

• Demonstrated success translating research and innovation into customer and business impact.

• Experience working on digital advertising, creative tooling, or AI-powered content platforms.

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Applied Sciences M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.