Applied AI Scientist

Responsibilities

• Establishes collaborative relationships with relevant product and business groups inside or outside of Microsoft and provides AI and Large Language Model (LLM) expertise or technology to create business impact. Takes initiative and drives activities such as technology transfers attempts, standards organizations, filing patents, authoring white papers, developing or maintaining tools/services for internal Microsoft use, or consulting for product or business groups. May publish research to promote receiving new intellectual property for business impact.
• Brings new technology and approaches into production by applying long-term research efforts to solve immediate product needs. Collaborates with and bridges the gap between researchers (in community across the company, Microsoft Research [MSR], or in their own organizations) and development teams. Begins to negotiate across teams to ensure cutting edge technology is being applied to products in a practical way that meets key business objectives. Develops an understanding of research approaches used across a group or organization to leverage (and not re-invent) solutions.
• Independently works to create product impact. Identifies approach, and applies, improves, or creates a research-backed solution (e.g., novel, data driven, scalable, extendable) to positively impact a Microsoft product or service. Designs an approach to solve significant business problems shared by a senior team member. May publish research to promote receiving new intellectual property for product impact.

• Masters one or more subareas (e.g., Object Recognition, Text Classification) and gains expertise in a broad area of research (e.g., Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Statistical Modeling, Data-Driven Insights. Understands the corresponding literature and applicable research techniques. Uses expertise to identify the right technique to use when examining a problem.
• Serves as an expert within product domain. Gains deep knowledge in a complex or highly ambiguous service, platform, or domain. Shares knowledge of changes in industry trends and advances in applied technologies with engineers and product teams to apply advanced concepts to identify product needs and drive action toward solutions. Fosters audience for the product based on understanding of the industry.
• Reviews business and product requirements and incorporates state-of-the-art research or previously tested solutions occurring at Microsoft and the academic field to formulate plans that will meet business goals. Identifies problems and develops strategy to resolve team or feature level problems. Provides strategic direction for the kinds of data used to solve problems.
• Researches and develops an understanding of tools, technologies, and methods being used in the community that can be utilized to improve product quality, performance, or efficiency. Applies deep subject matter expert knowledge around several specialized tools/methods to support business impact.

• Provides mentorship by participating in onboarding to less experienced team members (e.g., interns, research associates) and guiding less experienced team members in processes, scenarios, projects, and their careers, and provides guidance around best practices and standards. Assists in developing academics to be members of multi-discipline teams.
• Identifies and inspires peers and new research talent to join Microsoft. Participates in candidate screening and interviewing and forms job descriptions for attracting new talent. May share research findings through publications or industry outreach. Collaborates with the academic community to develop the recruiting pipeline, identify cutting-edge solutions for products, and establish awareness of their work.

• Performs documentation of work in progress, experimentation results, plans, etc. Documents scientific work to ensure process is captured. Creates informal documentation and may share findings to promote innovation within group or with other groups.

• Uses deep understanding of fairness and bias. May contribute to ethics and privacy policies related to research processes and/or data/information collection by providing updates and suggestions around internal best practices. Seeks to identify potential bias in the development of products. Completes the necessary Responsible AI certifications as needed for this role.

• Embody our culture and values.
• Communicate and iterate on plans upwards and outwards to OSOT community (Domain leads, SMEs, Business Analyst, and engineering team).

Qualifications

• 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.Additional or Preferred Qualifications.

• 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.
• 1+ year(s) experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team.
• 1+ year(s) experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.

• Hands-on Proficiency in the following Azure Services (Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure OpenAI, Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Bot Service)
• Proficiency in the following Software languages (Python, R)
• Other Software languages – (C#, Java, JavaScript)

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.