Principal Researcher

At Microsoft, we run the biggest platform for collaboration and productivity in the world with hundreds of millions of consumer/enterprise users. Solving AI, Systems and Privacy challenges is crucial for delivering the best-in-class productivity experiences.

We are an Applied Research team driving medium and long-term product innovations. We closely collaborate with multiple research teams and product groups across the globe who bring a multitude of technical expertise in cloud systems, machine learning, privacy and software engineering. We communicate our research both internally and externally through academic publications, open-source releases, blog posts, patents, and industry conferences. Further, we also collaborate with academic and industry partners to advance the state of the art and aim for material product impact that will affect 100s of millions of customers.

We are looking for a Principal Researcher with an inter-disciplinary background in AI, Distributed Systems and Privacy research including efficient training and inference of Large Language Models (LLMs), reliability of web scale cloud workloads and privacy mitigations in machine learning. You will be one of the key architects behind the vision and strategy of our research team with 40+ world class researchers. You will help drive cross-organizational execution to deliver strong company and academic impact.

Responsibilities

• Research Vision and Strategy: Provide vision, technical guidance, deep industry expertise, and thought leadership to impact direction of our focus areas across the company.
• Guide research to advance the state of the art in AI, Systems and Privacy research.
• Cross-Organization Leadership: Enable effective collaboration among multiple research, engineering, and business teams, and provides leadership to the internal and external research community.
• Work with a small group of fellow researchers and product engineering teams to execute practical solutions for step-function real-world impact.
• Publish and contribute to top scientific conferences and journals.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Doctorate in relevant field AND 5+ years related research experience
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years leadership experience (e.g., leading research projects, leading program committees, mentoring interns/post-docs).
• At least five publications in top conferences/journals in one of the following areas: machine learning, systems, privacy, software engineering, statistics, optimization.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Doctorate in relevant field AND 8+ years related research experience
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience in translating scientific research to engineering or product impact.

Research Sciences IC6 – The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $158,500 – $276,600 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 $202,800 – $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

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.