Principal Applied Scientist - CoreAI

Microsoft Corp

Mountain View, CA

JOB DETAILS
SALARY
$142,800–$274,800 Per Year
SKILLS
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents, Background Investigation, Cloud Computing, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Construction, Customer/Client Research, Data Science, Data Sets, Develop Methodologies, Diversity, Econometrics, Editing, Electrical Engineering, Information Retrieval, Integrated Circuits (ICs), Knowledge Base, Knowledge Management, Machine Learning, Metrics, Microsoft Bing Search Engine, Microsoft Product Family, Microsoft Windows Azure, Predictive Modeling, Product Lifecycle, Product Management, Project/Program Management, Proof of Concept, Scaffolding, Search Engines, Statistics, Team Lead/Manager, Team Player, Technical Leadership, Unstructured Data
LOCATION
Mountain View, CA
POSTED
5 days ago

Overview

Microsoft's Enterprise customers have a challenge - they need the tools to build agentic experiences over public and private knowledge. The Azure AI Knowledge team is leading the way to deliver the next chapter of agentic retrieval through Foundry IQ Knowledge bases to bring together many sources of structured and unstructured enterprise data and transform it into knowledge. We are continuously developing and deploying new capabilities to meet the demands of complex queries that require reasoning and reflection to deliver high quality results. Our customers span many different industries, corpus sizes and scenarios, and our work includes multiple aspects, such as:

  • Developing LLM prompts, agents and query execution workflows, often with tight latency constraints

  • Collection, generation and filtering of training and evaluation data

  • Building off state of the art techniques from across Microsoft and the industry

  • Use of AI coding patterns to parallelize and accelerate experimentation

You can follow our progression from better search, to RAG, to agentic retrieval:

  • Azure AI Search: Outperforming vector search with hybrid retrieval and ranking capabilities - Microsoft Community Hub

  • Raising the bar for RAG excellence: introducing generative query rewriting and new ranking model

  • Up to 40% better relevance for complex queries with new agentic retrieval engine

  • Foundry IQ: boost response relevance by 36% with agentic retrieval | Microsoft Community Hub

  • Foundry IQ: Improve recall by up to 54% with knowledge bases | Microsoft Community Hub

As a team, we leverage the diverse backgrounds and experiences of passionate engineers, scientists, and program managers to help us realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We believe great products are built by inclusive teams of customer-obsessed individuals who trust each other and work closely together.  We collaborate regularly across the company with teams like M365, Bing and Microsoft Research.

A major aspect of this role is to push our development of knowledge retrieval to the frontier. This requires a capable individual who can leverage multiple coding agents to explore new techniques (autoresearch, claws, CLI systems, etc) and bring them to production at scale.

If you are passionate about working on the latest and hottest areas in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and data science, all the while making search better for customers across the world, then this is the team you're looking for!

Responsibilities

  • Lead state of the art research incorporation into techniques shipped to production.

  • Proactively develop and build metrics to use across the full range of search engine components.

  • Seek out and incorporate customer feedback into dataset construction, evaluation, and technique development.

  • Lead technical excellence and contribute to experimentation infrastructure and proofs-of-concept using AI coding agents.

  • Advances the quality of the team's experimental codebase to ensure experiments are efficient and repeatable.

  • Nurtures collaborative relationships with product management, engineers, and other functions across products.

  • Drive clear and efficient plans, documents, and communication

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

Bachelors 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 Masters 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.

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:

  • Masters 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.
  • 3+ year(s) experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.
  • Experience with agentic coding systems, including scaffolding for long-running agents.
  • Experience with hybrid collaboration skills, with clear async/sync communication and teamwork.
  • Experience defining task-specific metrics and evaluation datasets.

#CoreAI

#AIPLATFORM

Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $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

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.

About the Company

M

Microsoft Corp

DO WHAT YOU LOVE
Make your mark on the world’s most used technologies. Develop the next hit mobile application. Pioneer a startup that could be the next big thing. At Microsoft, you choose your path.

Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft is a top innovator in both the consumer and enterprise technology industry. Just a few of the many things our products do are unleash creativity, connect businesses, and make learning more fun. But our continued success is based on one thing: our employees. We hire amazing, talented people and give them the opportunities—and the tools—to succeed.

WHY MICROSOFT?
As a Microsoft employee, you’re surrounded by a diverse group of the smartest people in your field. This fosters new ideas, better business results, and creates a dynamic work environment. In the office, you’re constantly challenged and supported by your colleagues. Every day holds something new and exciting.

We also offer unparalleled depth and breadth of career opportunities. As an industry leader in multiple fields, working for Microsoft means being able to do whatever you feel passionate about—and being able to make an impact in that field. From day one, we give our employees significant responsibility. This means that you’ll know that you directly contributed to something that has a positive impact on people worldwide. Whether you choose to work in management, dive deep into the newest technology, or explore multiple professions, you’ll find everything you need at Microsoft to drive your career—and to make a difference.

WE GET IT – YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR JOB
Everyone works differently and is motivated by different things. We also understand that there’s more to you than your job. That’s why we offer competitive pay and a wide assortment of benefits-- to help you make the most of life at work and away from it.

GET THE BALL ROLLING
COMPANY SIZE
10,000 employees or more
INDUSTRY
Computer Software
FOUNDED
1975
WEBSITE
http://www.microsoft.com