Principal Research Scientist

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

About The Position

The AI Transformation team within Microsoft Frontier Company is reimagining how the company operates in the age of AI. This multidisciplinary team works across the business to transform end-to-end workflows by bringing people, AI agents, and systems together. Its builder mindset is hands-on, highly collaborative, comfortable with ambiguity, and biased toward action. The goal is to build AI-native operating models and reusable solutions that improve how the company works and accelerate transformation at scale. The Principal Research Scientist will help set research questions, build evidence, and share insights about the business and human experience of agentic transformation. Working with colleagues across design, applied AI, engineering, program leadership, and business transformation, and with partners across the business, the role studies how agents are changing work, roles, judgment, and decision-making. Findings will inform the design of human and AI systems, agents, workflows, and operating models that improve business outcomes and people's experience of work. Research insights may also benefit customers and industries navigating similar changes.

Requirements

Doctorate in a relevant field and 3+ years of related research experience, or a master's degree in a relevant field and 4+ years of related research experience, or a bachelor's degree in a relevant field and 6+ years of related research experience, or equivalent experience.
Experience participating in a top conference in a relevant research domain.

Nice To Haves

Doctorate in a relevant field and 5+ years of related research experience, or a master's degree in a relevant field and 8+ years of related research experience, or a bachelor's degree in a relevant field and 12+ years of related research experience, or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

Co-evolve research questions focused on the business and human experience of agentic transformation, building evidence about how AI and agents are changing work, organizations, roles, and ways of operating.
Identify new and consequential questions as agentic ways of working evolve, using research findings to open new lines of inquiry and deepen understanding.
Lead and conduct research into agentic transformation, shaping approaches across related studies and combining qualitative and other appropriate methods to understand behaviors, experiences, tensions, opportunities, and unintended consequences.
Apply social and behavioral science perspectives, methodological rigor, and critical thinking throughout the research program, guiding how questions are framed, evidence is gathered, findings are interpreted, and conclusions are drawn.
Develop sustained programs of inquiry beyond individual studies, including longitudinal and comparative research where valuable, to understand what is changing, why, and under what conditions.
Build evidence on how agents affect decision quality and business outcomes, including changes in judgment, trust, and accountability that usage metrics cannot capture.
Synthesize evidence across studies to inform the design of Agentic Transformation, helping teams shape interventions, challenge and test assumptions, and make better decisions as technology, people, and operating models evolve.
Build and sustain collaboration across researchers, design, engineering, strategy, industry experts, customers, and external research communities.
Develop research, evidence, frameworks, and insights of wider value that can be shared with customers and industries navigating similar changes in work and organization.
Communicate research findings clearly and responsibly to researchers, practitioners, leaders, and customers, explaining the strength, limitations, and implications of the evidence.