Principal Applied Scientist - CoreAI

The CoreAI organization at Microsoft builds the end-to-end Artificial Intelligence (AI) stack and is core to Azure AI innovation and differentiation, as well as all of Microsoft’s flagship products, from GitHub, to Office, Teams, and Xbox. We are the team building Responsible AI, Azure OpenAI, Model as a Service, Azure Machine Learning (ML), Cognitive Services, and the global Azure AI infrastructure for running the largest AI workloads on the planet.

We ensure Microsoft ships AI systems that are safe, secure, and trustworthy—empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Our team sits at the intersection of cutting-edge AI research and planet-scale production systems, powering technologies like GitHub Copilot and Azure OpenAI. We are looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to join our team!

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

In this role you’ll develop machine learning techniques that push the boundaries of safety, alignment, and trustworthy AI. You’ll collaborate across product, research, and engineering teams to design, build, and maintain responsible AI systems that make an impact at scale—from early-stage development and experimentation to production, monitoring, and continuous iteration.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) 
  • OR Masters Degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, 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:

• Experience and familiarity with large language models (LLMs).
• Experience with and a solid foundation in large distributed systems, algorithms, and software engineering principles.
• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in a research/ML engineering or an applied research scientist position, ideally with a focus on AI safety.
• Have hands-on experience with deep learning and transformer-based models
• Excel at problem-solving and analytics, with a proactive approach to challenges
• Thrive in fast-moving environments where priorities shift and definitions evolve.
• Enjoy taking ownership end-to-end and learning whatever is necessary to get results.
• Comfortable working independently while thriving in cross-team collaborations.
• Understand methods for training and fine-tuning LLMs, including distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization.

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.