Principal Applied Researcher

About the role

The Data and AI team in Microsoft’s Developer Division is working on the future of AI for Developers. We are a diverse, entrepreneurial, and multi-disciplinary group of scientists, researchers, and engineers with a passion for using AI to improve the productivity of millions of developers worldwide. We have released AI for code advancements in GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Visual Studio, and other Microsoft Copilots. We seek an entrepreneurial and creative Principal Applied Researcher to lead groundbreaking research projects, taking these from research into product.

You will collaborate with scientists, engineers, and designers across Microsoft Research, Microsoft product teams, and GitHub. You will have the opportunity to build and train state-of-the-art models and advance existing approaches of using LLMs for software engineering, from using RAG to evaluation. Most importantly, you will work closely with several developer product teams to run experiments, evaluate, iterate, and improve your AI projects on a large scale.

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.

Responsibilities

• Lead research projects on the future of AI for developers
• Collaborate across disciplines with product teams across Microsoft and GitHub
• Stay up to date with the research literature and product advances in AI for software engineering
• Create new datasets from both the world's public code and Microsoft's internal data
• Build and manage large-scale ML experiments and models
• Embody Microsoft’s Culture and Values

Requirements

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in a relevant field
• OR Master's Degree in a relevant field AND 3+ years of related research experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field AND 4+ years of related research experience
• OR equivalent experience

Other Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including specialized security screenings such as the Microsoft Cloud Background Check (required upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter)

Preferred Qualifications

• Doctorate in a relevant field AND 3+ years of related research experience
• OR Master's Degree in a relevant field AND 6+ years of related research experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field AND 8+ years of related research experience
• OR equivalent experience
• Experience publishing academic papers as a lead author or essential contributor
• Experience participating in a top conference in a relevant research domain
• 2+ years of experience building machine learning and AI for a production environment
• 3+ years of experience developing and deploying live production systems as part of a product team
• 3+ years of experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping

Pay

The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. A different range applies to specific work locations, including the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, where the base pay range is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.