About the position

Come build community, explore your passions, and do your best work at Microsoft. This opportunity will allow you to bring your aspirations, talent, potential - and excitement for the journey ahead. Microsoft is dedicated to transforming Azure into a global AI supercomputer, enabling the responsible development of cutting-edge foundational AI. This includes large language models (LLMs) designed to empower people to harness the world's knowledge, revolutionize interactions with technology, and enhance user experiences. To solidify our leadership in AI, Microsoft has launched a groundbreaking program to develop the next generation of leaders in this field. Over the course of two years, participants will work in interdisciplinary project teams to provide AI as a service to engineering teams across Microsoft and solve some of our most exciting and challenging problems. In addition, you will have mentors, exposure to leaders, and access to numerous AI applied scientists, researchers, and engineers across the company. After completing the program, participants have the opportunity to join one of the sponsoring product teams and further accelerate their careers at Microsoft. MAIDAP Applied Scientists will have the opportunity to leverage or instantiate novel AI technologies into production by advancing the state-of-the-art both internally and externally to meet product needs. Acting as the bridge between research and development (R D), they will blend techniques from both researchers and development teams. This approach drives data-driven, research-backed innovation from theory into reality, in collaboration with software engineers and product managers in MAIDAP, as well as partnering product and technology teams across Microsoft. A PhD is preferred for this role, as it reflects advanced proficiency in scientific methodology, rigorous experimental design, and a strong commitment to reproducible research practices. 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. Please note that this position has a single start date in July 2026, candidates must be available to start full-time in July 2026. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate earlier start dates.

Responsibilities

• Research, develop, and lead the implementation of AI solutions in application projects for Microsoft's products and services.
• Select and apply appropriate statistical and machine learning techniques to large-scale, high-dimensional data.
• Stay current with the latest research and technology and communicate your knowledge throughout the organization.
• Take responsibility for preparing data for analysis, reviewing data preparation/ETL code, and providing critical feedback on issues of data integrity.
• Share knowledge by clearly articulating results and ideas to customers, managers, and key decision makers.
• Patent and publish relevant IP and scientific research.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 2+ 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 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience.
• Candidates must be available to start full-time in July 2026.

Nice-to-haves

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 5+ 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.
• 1+ year(s) experience creating publications (e.g., patents, peer-reviewed academic papers).
• A publication record in any of the following or related modeling paradigms: LLMs/SLMs/multi-modal models/probabilistic graphical models/Bayesian networks/deep learning/reinforcement learning/time series/active learning/fair and interpretable AI/optimization for machine learning.
• Experience in any of the deep learning frameworks, systems, or big-data application solutions, along with application experience in language, speech, vision, graphics, gaming, or recommendation.
• 2+ years experience and proven knowledge in Python/R/Scala or similar.
• Energized by creating AI solutions and the prospect of working on a wide variety of datasets and AI applications, across many products and engineering teams.

Benefits

• Industry leading healthcare
• Educational resources
• Discounts on products and services
• Savings and investments
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Generous time away
• Giving programs
• Opportunities to network and connect