Principal Applied Research Manager
About The Position
GitHub Copilot, part of CoreAI, is building the future of AI for developers. We are a diverse, entrepreneurial, multi-disciplinary team of scientists, researchers, and engineers passionate about using AI to transform how software is built and to meaningfully improve the productivity of millions of developers worldwide. We ship at scale across GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Visual Studio, and other Microsoft Copilots. We are looking for a Principal Applied Research Manager—an inspiring, technically deep leader—to build and manage a team of applied researchers and engineers and drive high-impact science into product experiences across VS Code, GitHub Copilot, Copilot CLI and the GitHub Copilot Coding Agent. A core pillar of this role is building agentic developer experiences and the evaluation systems behind them: You will lead work spanning agentic architectures and the AI bets for our products, while establishing best-in-class agentic evaluations that measure task success, tool use, reliability, latency/cost tradeoffs, and safety. 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. 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.
Requirements
- Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience in AI Research OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience in AI Research OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience in AI Research. OR equivalent experience.
- 1+ year(s) of people management experience.
- 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.
Nice To Haves
- 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 of people management experience.
- Experience as a lead driving large AI research across multiple researchers or applied scientists
- Experience with LLMs in natural language.
- Software development skills in Python, C#, C++, or Java.
- Experience with AI for code or related fields
- Experience in productizing AI and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams
- Experience publishing academic papers as a lead author or essential contributor in field of Artificial Intelligence
Responsibilities
- Evaluation Leadership: Define the quality standards and success metrics that determine when a model is ready for users.
- System Building: Create the end-to-end evaluation infrastructure, including benchmarks, automated pipelines, and human-in-the-loop testing.
- Strategic Vision: Set the AI innovation roadmap for Copilot and coding agents, turning "bold bets" and research questions into shipped product features.
- Research Execution: Partner with engineering to iterate on models, prompts, and retrieval to accelerate the path to production.
- Hire, mentor, and grow a high-performing team; raise the technical bar through reviews and mentorship, create clarity in ambiguity, and influence partners across research, product, engineering, and Responsible AI to execute quickly and responsibly
- Embody our culture and values
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees
