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Job Details
Posted date: Oct 02, 2025
There have been 197 jobs posted with the title of Principal Applied Scientist all time at Microsoft.There have been 197 Principal Applied Scientist jobs posted in the last month.
Category: Research, Applied, & Data Sciences
Location: Multiple Locations, Multiple Locations
Estimated salary: $222,050
Range: $139,900 - $304,200
Employment type: Full-Time
Travel amount: 25.0%
Work location type: 0 days / week in-office - remote
Role: Individual Contributor
Description
We're looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to drive innovation at the intersection of vibe coding, low code, and Copilot. You’ll lead rapid experimentation cycles, develop robust evaluation frameworks, and apply advanced techniques like reinforcement learning to enable multi-step reasoning and decision-making. You’ll collaborate across engineering, product, and partner teams to ensure agents are performant, secure, reliable, and extensible—empowering customers and partners to build on our platform. This is your opportunity to influence the next generation of AI-native business applications and deliver real-world impact at scale.The ideal candidate has prior expertise in natural language processing (NLP), with a strong foundation in large language model (LLM) development, evaluation, and fine-tuning. They should have experience in applying advanced fine-tuning techniques—including instruction tuning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and tool-augmented generation—to build agents capable of multi-step reasoning and decision-making. Familiarity with prompt engineering, context-aware orchestration, and integrating LLMs with external tools and APIs is essential. The candidate should be comfortable working in a experimentation-driven environment, leveraging both offline and online evaluation methods to iterate rapidly and optimize agent behavior. A deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in building AI-native enterprise applications will be key to success in this role.
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.
You will master a broad area or research and understand any applicable research techniques. You’ll also serve as a team expert on changes in industry trends, products, and other advances, and apply this knowledge to influence product needs.You will review business and product requirement, incorporate research, and provide strategic direction for problem solving. You’ll also ensure scientific rigor, support the development of methods, and apply your expertise to support business impact.You will identify and inspire peers and new research talent to join Microsoft, build relationships, and advocate for research initiatives. You’ll share research findings through industry outreach, collaborate with the academic community, and help develop the recruiting pipeline.You will document work and experimentation results and share findings to promote innovation. You’ll provide guidance when capturing processes and contribute to ethics and privacy policies related to research processes and data collection.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications: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.5+ years experience creating publications (e.g., patents, libraries, peer-reviewed academic papers).
Other Requirements:
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.
Preferred Qualifications:
2+ years experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research/industry community as an invited speaker.Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
Microsoft will accept applications for the role until October 7, 2025.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
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