Senior Applied Scientist

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

You’ll join the asset generation team in Microsoft AI focusing on image and video retrieval, recommendation and generation. You will build core generative AI solutions that power customer-facing AI solutions and services for Microsoft Advertising at Bing platforms. In this role, you’ll combine solid computer vision skills with applied ML expertise to design, prototype, evaluate and ship production systems—using techniques like knowledge distillation, prompt engineering, reinforcement learning, image/video processing and rigorous evaluation/metrics to continuously improve image and video asset qualities. You’ll partner closely across product, research, and service engineering to deliver the innovative and robust solutions for enterprise customers.
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 4+ 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 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master'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 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.
• Demonstrated solid modelling skills in training and inferencing on online and offline computer vision models and related performance optimization for latency and artifact.
• Experience with prompt engineering, knowledge distillation and post-training.
• Experience building and shipping generative AI systems (including image and video systems).
• Familiarity with compliance and security standards in enterprise AI solutions.
• Track record of delivering enterprise-facing AI products at scale.
• Experience building and operating ML/AI systems in cloud environments; familiarity with MLOps practices (Azure a plus).
• Experience in publishing papers in top-tier computer vision and machine learning conferences such as CVPR, ICML, ICCV, Neurips and ICLR.

Responsibilities

• Research, develop, and build effective and innovative production-grade generative AI and classical computer vision systems, with end-to-end ownership from concept through deployment and service operations.
• Lead technical design for core GenAI capabilities on image and video assets (e.g., image and video generation, super-resolution and summarization) and make data-driven tradeoffs across quality, latency, cost, and safety.
• Define and improve model and system quality using evaluation frameworks, experiment design, and metric evaluation; ensure robust testing and regression coverage.
• Collaborate with the partner teams to build solutions that meet enterprise requirements and align with customer needs and make business impact.

What This Job Offers

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