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Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft· Applied Sciences
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Redmond, WA, Mountain View, CA$165.6k - $296.4kFull-timePosted 4w ago

About the role

Lead one or more large-scale AI/ML initiatives to advance search using state-of-the-art AI technologies, including large language models, with focus on retrieval, ranking, alignment, and production deployment within Microsoft's Core Search and AI (Bing) team.

Responsibilities

  • Lead one or more big initiatives leveraging expertise across a broad research landscape, including advanced research methodologies and applied techniques.
  • Review business requirements and incorporate research insights to meet strategic goals; define data and model strategies to solve complex problems.
  • Support onboarding of new team members and develop academic collaborators into contributors; strengthen recruiting pipeline.
  • Advance LLM post-training and alignment techniques to improve reasoning quality, safety, controllability, and factual grounding.
  • Drive and develop next-generation search capabilities by building and optimizing retrieval, ranking, and relevance systems integrated with LLM-powered experiences.
  • Architect and refine RAG pipelines to improve retrieval fidelity and reduce hallucinations in production.
  • Translate research into production via experiments, analysis, and collaboration with engineering for scalable model improvements.
  • Drive scientific rigor through hypothesis-driven experimentation, reproducible methodologies, and clear documentation of findings.
  • Collaborate across disciplines to shape long-term strategy for search, alignment, and retrieval-augmented systems.
  • Contribute to a culture of innovation by sharing learnings, mentoring peers, and participating in internal research discussions and technical reviews.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years related experience (or equivalent)
  • Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (or equivalent)
  • Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years related experience (or equivalent)
  • Preferred: 12+ years for Master’s or 8+ years for Doctorate paths (equivalent experience)
  • 6+ years of experience coding in Python, C++, C#, C, or Java
  • 6+ years of industry experience applying Machine Learning techniques
  • Experience building and improving large-scale ML systems for search, ads, and recommendation, adopting LLMs
  • Research background in ML, LLM, and NLP
  • Proficient problem solver with ability to tackle previously unsolved problems

Skills

Required:Large Language Models (LLMs)Retrieval and Ranking SystemsExperimentation and Evaluation
Nice to have:RAG Pipelines

Benefits

  • Benefits and other compensation may apply; see Microsoft career pay information page.
Last updated Sep 24, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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