Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

2d • $142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

The AI Transformation team within Microsoft Frontier Company is reimagining how the company operates in the age of AI. The team works across the business to transform critical end-to-end workflows, bringing people, AI agents, and systems together to create new ways of working. It combines engineering, applied AI, program leadership, and business transformation, using a hands-on, collaborative builder mindset to move rapidly from opportunity to working solution. Its goal is to build AI-native operating models and reusable solutions that improve company operations and accelerate transformation at scale.

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will apply data science, machine learning, and generative AI to build intelligent solutions that transform company operations. You will work in small, multidisciplinary teams to experiment rapidly, evaluate approaches, and turn data and emerging AI capabilities into agents, models, and decision systems that deliver measurable operational impact. The role includes technical leadership across applied AI initiatives and translating research into production-ready capabilities in partnership with engineering teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a related field and 6+ years of related experience, or a master's degree in one of these fields and 4+ years of related experience, or a doctorate in one of these fields and 3+ years of related experience, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a related field and 9+ years of related experience, or a doctorate in one of these fields and 6+ years of related experience, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience creating publications, such as patents, libraries, or peer-reviewed academic papers.
• 2+ years of experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research or industry community as an invited speaker.
• 5+ years of experience conducting research as part of a research program in academic or industry settings.
• 3+ years of experience developing and deploying live production systems as part of a product team.
• 3+ years of experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle, from ideation to shipping.

Responsibilities

• Advance and apply state-of-the-art AI, including foundation models, reasoning systems, multi-agent architectures, RAG, and emerging techniques, to solve complex operational problems.
• Identify high-value opportunities for applied AI and translate ambiguous business problems into rigorous technical approaches and experiments.
• Rapidly prototype, evaluate, and iterate on AI solutions using AI-first development and coding tools.
• Design robust evaluation methodologies, benchmarks, experiments, and success criteria that connect system performance to measurable operational outcomes.
• Build scalable data, experimentation, and learning loops that use real-world signals and feedback to improve AI systems.
• Translate research into production-ready capabilities, partnering with engineering teams on architecture, implementation, deployment, observability, reliability, and performance.
• Develop reusable AI methods, frameworks, and evaluation approaches for multiple transformation scenarios.
• Provide technical leadership across applied AI initiatives, helping teams evaluate techniques, make technical tradeoffs, and identify meaningful opportunities.
• Incorporate Responsible AI, privacy, security, scientific rigor, and appropriate governance throughout experimentation and deployment.

Benefits

• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation; additional benefits and pay information is available through the linked Microsoft careers page.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal