M

Microsoft

Builds workplace software, PCs and cloud services

Principal Applied Scientist

Full-Time
$142.8k - $304.2k/yr
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, PhD
Redmond, WA, USA
Hybrid
AI & Machine LearningNatural Language Processing & LLMs
Company Historically Provides H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • A bachelor's degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field and 6 or more years of related experience in areas such as statistics, predictive analytics, or research; or a master's degree in those fields and 4 or more years of related experience; or a doctorate in those fields and 3 or more years of related experience; or equivalent experience.
  • Pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
  • Proficiency in agentic engineering.
  • A master's degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field and 9 or more years of related experience; or a doctorate in those fields and 6 or more years of related experience; or equivalent experience.
  • Five or more years of experience creating publications, such as patents, libraries, or peer-reviewed academic papers.
  • Five or more years of experience building and maintaining production machine learning systems at internet scale.
  • Three or more years of experience working with multidisciplinary, geographically distributed teams.
  • Demonstrated experience owning end-to-end machine learning and software projects, including gathering requirements and feedback, collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders, producing technical designs, shipping to production, and iterating on systems after launch.
  • Advanced expertise in agentic engineering.
Responsibilities
  • Define and manage experiments from inception through shipment, create the required metrics, machine learning pipelines, and algorithms, own problems end-to-end, and acquire knowledge needed to complete the work.
  • Define rigorous evaluation methodologies, offline benchmarks, online experimentation frameworks, and data-driven approaches for measuring model and product performance.
  • Influence senior leadership and partner teams through high-quality written and oral summaries of work in progress and experimentation results.
  • Build tools to accelerate personal and teammate workflows when off-the-shelf solutions are insufficient.
  • Contribute to strategic planning and long-term technical roadmaps, incorporating current research to meet business goals.
  • Contribute to the growth and development of the team's engineers and applied scientists; identify research talent to join Microsoft and collaborate with the academic community to develop the recruiting pipeline.
  • Support and develop an applied science culture within CASQ that encourages experimentation, scientific process, and innovation.
Desired Qualifications
  • Ability to thrive in dynamic environments, particularly where priorities may shift and project definitions evolve.

About the company

Microsoft builds workplace software, operating systems and cloud infrastructure for consumers, businesses and government agencies, from small organizations to global enterprises. Microsoft 365 combines Word and Excel with Teams communication and Copilot AI features, while Windows runs PCs and Surface supplies the company's own computers. Azure rents computing capacity, storage and databases to build and run web applications. Microsoft also sells Xbox consoles and games, collecting revenue through software licenses, subscriptions, usage charges and product sales. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

Redmond, Washington

Founded

1975

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • US corporate staff receive education support: eligible, approved graduate coursework qualifies for up to $10,000 annually.
  • Cloud demand expands: July 2026 results showed Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43% year-over-year in fiscal Q4.
  • Investment has an earnings cushion: July 2026 results reported $155.2 billion consolidated operating profit for fiscal 2026.

What critics are saying

  • Performance reviews include security: every Microsoft employee must discuss their security contribution with their manager.
  • Office flexibility depends on the role: Microsoft's postings specify requirements ranging from fully remote to fully on-site.
  • Cloud capacity faces local limits: Microsoft describes power-grid delays and water constraints affecting US datacenter expansion.

What makes Microsoft unique

  • Hybrid customers stay within reach: Azure Arc manages servers across customer datacenters and competing clouds.
  • Developer reach extends beyond Azure: Microsoft's GitHub hosts code collaboration alongside AI coding tools.
  • Professional data widens its business: Microsoft owns LinkedIn's recruiting, advertising and workplace-learning network.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

401(k) Company Match

Professional Development Budget

Conference Attendance Budget

Flexible Work Hours

Remote Work Options

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

0%
Associated Press
Oct 14th, 2026
PosturePass brings contractor and BYOD device checks to Microsoft Marketplace via Entra ID

Ensure Endpoint Technologies has made PosturePass available in Microsoft Marketplace. The app lets organisations check the security of contractor and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) devices through their existing Microsoft Entra ID Conditional Access policies. Contractors install the app themselves, with no device-management enrolment, administrator rights, or IT ticket. It checks disk encryption, antivirus, firewall status, operating system patches, remote access software, and password policy. Once a device passes, PosturePass sends a compliance signal to Microsoft Entra ID, which can then grant access. Roughly one-quarter of devices fail at least one check during initial rollout. Most owners fix the problems without help-desk involvement. PosturePass is used across thousands of devices at insurance and financial services firms. Organisations can buy it through Microsoft Marketplace, including via private offers.

CNBC
Oct 14th, 2026
Apple, Amazon and Microsoft launch AI gadgets from $299 to $2,599 for holiday season

Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have each unveiled AI devices in the past week, hoping to bring generative AI into homes before the holidays. Analysts expect modest sales for now, as weak consumer sentiment and rising component costs weigh on the market. Microsoft showed a Windows laptop from $2,599 with an RTX Spark chip that runs AI without the cloud. Amazon's largest Alexa Tablet 12 Pro costs $550, and its new Alexa requires a $19.99 monthly subscription or Prime membership. Apple's HomeView smart home hub costs $299 and has a 7-inch screen and facial recognition. Its $1,999 folding iPhone Duo reaches stores next week. IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani said the aim is to get devices into homes and teach users, laying groundwork for bigger launches.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 13th, 2026
Burry flags $3T in off-balance-sheet AI liabilities as Microsoft stock climbs 41% in three months

Investor Michael Burry, known for calling the 2008 housing crash, has warned that Microsoft and other big tech firms carry roughly $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI data-center liabilities. He said the companies are spending heavily because they assume they will get an oligopoly "too big to fail." Microsoft's capital spending in the June quarter was $41 billion, up 70% from a year ago. Its commercial remaining performance obligations, or contracted revenue not yet recognised, exceed $678 billion. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 18% to $90 billion, and net income rose 31% to $35.8 billion. Azure passed $100 billion in annual revenue. Shares are up 41% in three months. Analysts' consensus rating is "Strong Buy," with an average price target of $577.98.

PR Newswire
Oct 13th, 2026
Arena Physica brings Heaviside AI to Microsoft Discovery, simulating EM fields 100,000x faster

Arena Physica has made Heaviside, its foundation model for electromagnetism, available on Microsoft Discovery, Microsoft's platform for agentic engineering. The company announced the move on October 13, 2026. Heaviside-1 has 350 million parameters and was trained on 250,000 3D field simulations. It predicts a design's full 3D electromagnetic field response in milliseconds, roughly 100,000 times faster than a traditional solver, and within a decibel of commercial accuracy. Traditional solvers can take hours or days per run, which makes design verification the main bottleneck. On Discovery, an agent can switch between Heaviside's predictions and a full-fidelity solver for final validation. Arena Physica expects strong uptake in semiconductors, including BGA packaging and SerDes interconnects. Discovery also offers audit logging and access controls to protect sensitive designs.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 12th, 2026
Palihapitiya and Musk say power and cooling are AI's real limits as Microsoft pushes own chips

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said power and physical infrastructure could be the lasting constraints in the AI race. He posted on X on Monday, after Microsoft announced its own silicon chips. Palihapitiya wrote that chipmakers will move up the stack while application companies move down it, so "everyone competes with everyone." He asked whether distribution, a data moat, or a physical limit such as power would support long-term margins. Elon Musk replied that scaling power, fast construction, cooling, networking, and batteries "is hard." Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella said the company will scale its Maia chips to multi-gigawatt deployments starting next year. He said the Maia 300 delivers 40% more tokens per watt than leading GPU-based systems.