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Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft· Applied Sciences
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Redmond, WA, Mountain View, CA$142.8k - $274.8kFull-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Ads Fraud Detection at Microsoft builds and operates advanced ML systems to identify and neutralize fraudulent web traffic in real time at scale. The Principal Applied Scientist leads complex fraud challenges, designs new anomaly detection approaches, builds cross-signal analysis, and develops production-ready ML models and low-latency pipelines, while mentoring others and ensuring reliability, scalability, and governance.

Responsibilities

  • Independently lead and execute multiple high-impact fraud detection initiatives, turning ambiguous problems into measurable business outcomes.
  • Develop practical, deployable machine learning (ML) solutions that operate reliably at production scale, balancing detection effectiveness, latency, resilience, operational complexity, and cost.
  • Translate scientific insights into production impact through rigorous experimentation, validation, rollout, monitoring, and continuous optimization under real-world operating constraints.
  • Apply advanced ML methods—including anomaly detection, cross-signal analysis, large language models (LLMs), and other modern AI techniques—with clear evaluation frameworks, robust tests, and success metrics to deliver reliable, scalable, production-ready solutions.
  • Drive technical collaboration across science, engineering, ads, security, and privacy teams to operationalize research and deliver end-to-end fraud detection capabilities.
  • Raise the technical bar through mentorship, scientific rigor, responsible AI practices, and high standards for quality, reliability, and governance.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field
  • 6+ years related experience (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 OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience
  • Other Requirements: Microsoft Cloud Background Check required upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Skills

Required:Anomaly detectionCross-signal analysisProduction ML systemsML model evaluation and experimentationMentorship and leadershipCommunication with stakeholders

Benefits

  • See compensation and benefits information at Microsoft Careers site.
Last updated Aug 6, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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