Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Microsoft Content Product team is looking for a passionate ML scientist to join our Core Recommendation and Content Generation team. This opportunity truly is exciting as the project we're working on has the potential to define the future of content services for Microsoft. Imagine a scenario where billions of users around the world can discover content they care about and start new conversations with their friends, family, and colleagues - this is what we're creating! Today, Windows has close to 1 billion monthly active users, and Outlook, Teams, Edge, and Bing also have hundreds of millions of users plus the partnership with third party, the presents a huge opportunity to engage users with content worldwide.

Are you an experienced ML scientist who is seeking an opportunity to expand and apply your existing knowledge in LLM and NLP? Do you want to challenge yourself and pursue the latest ideas while changing the way millions of people do local search every day? Do you want to build scalable services using state of art deep learning that can truly help users using Windows/Bing in mobile and desktop? If so, this is a great opportunity with real customer impact for you.
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.

Requirements

• Bachelor's 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 Master's 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.
• At least 8+ years of industry software development experience coding in C/C++, C#, Java and/or Python.
• Solid knowledge in deep learning computational graph frameworks, such as TensorFlow/Pytorch.
• Experience in LLM including fine tuning, evaluation for product scenarios
• Experience working through full product cycles from initial design to final product delivery.
• Experience developing and designing backgrounds in multi-tiered distributed services.
• Experience with data structures, algorithms, asynchronous programming, and data processing
• Experience developing end to end ML/DL systems.
• Experience applying LLM techniques or Recommendation system.

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 experience creating publications (e.g., patents, libraries, peer-reviewed academic papers).
• 2+ years experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research/industry community as an invited speaker.
• 5+ years experience conducting research as part of a research program (in academic or industry settings).
• 3+ years experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team.
• 3+ years experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.
• Knowledge and experience in large scale data analytics, such as Spark.
• An undergraduate or graduate degree in computer science or related technical discipline.
• Tech lead on critical project related to recommendation or AIGC scenarios.

Responsibilities

• Participate in design, implementation, and execution across a variety of features, including directly building SOTA LLM models.
• Drive architectural changes into the product to expand our footprint and increase developer agility.
• Invest in others’ growth, mentor team members, and help build a highly capable team.
• Regularly communicate team progress internally and evangelize progress and opportunities to a wider audience including management and leadership.
• Drive innovations in AIGC applications, ranking and recommendation algorithms.

What This Job Offers

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