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Microsoft • United States, Washington, Redmond
Microsoft is seeking a Principal Applied Scientist to lead the development of intelligent, agent-first experiences that transform business operations. You'll design and evaluate autonomous agents using advanced techniques like reinforcement learning and natural language processing. This role requires expertise in large language model development and a strong foundation in experimentation-driven environments.
Do you want to shape the future of the autonomous enterprise and lead the development of intelligent, agent-first experiences that transform how businesses operate? The Business and Industry Solutions (BIS) team is looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to drive innovation at the intersection of AI, experimentation, and enterprise systems.
In this role, you will design and evaluate autonomous agents that deliver measurable improvements in accuracy, latency, and cost-efficiency. You will lead rapid experimentation cycles, build robust evaluation frameworks, and apply advanced techniques such as reinforcement learning to enable multi-step reasoning and decision-making. You will collaborate across engineering, product, and partner teams to ensure agents are performant, secure, reliable, and extensible—empowering customers and partners to build on our platform. This is your opportunity to influence the next generation of AI-native business applications and deliver real-world impact at scale.
This role requires prior expertise in natural language processing (NLP), with a solid foundation in large language model (LLM) development, evaluation, and fine-tuning. You should have hands-on experience in applying advanced fine-tuning techniques—including instruction tuning, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and tool-augmented generation—to build agents capable of multi-step reasoning and decision-making. Familiarity with prompt engineering, context-aware orchestration, and integrating LLMs with external tools and APIs is essential. You should be comfortable working in a experimentation-driven environment, leveraging both offline and online evaluation methods to iterate rapidly and optimize agent behavior. A deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in building AI-native enterprise applications will be key to success in this role.
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.
Required Qualifications:
Other Requirements: Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:
Preferred Qualifications:
#BICJOBS
Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
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