New 
Principal Applied Scientist
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Texas, Irving | |
| 7000 State Highway 161 (Show on map) | |
 Oct 03, 2025 | |
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OverviewWe're looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to drive innovation at the intersection of vibe coding, low code, and Copilot. You'll lead rapid experimentation cycles, develop robust evaluation frameworks, and apply advanced techniques like reinforcement learning to enable multi-step reasoning and decision-making. You'll 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.The ideal candidate has prior expertise in natural language processing (NLP), with a strong foundation in large language model (LLM) development, evaluation, and fine-tuning. They should have 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. The candidate 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.
ResponsibilitiesYou will master a broad area or research and understand any applicable research techniques. You'll also serve as a team expert on changes in industry trends, products, and other advances, and apply this knowledge to influence product needs.You will review business and product requirement, incorporate research, and provide strategic direction for problem solving. You'll also ensure scientific rigor, support the development of methods, and apply your expertise to support business impact.You will identify and inspire peers and new research talent to join Microsoft, build relationships, and advocate for research initiatives. You'll share research findings through industry outreach, collaborate with the academic community, and help develop the recruiting pipeline.You will document work and experimentation results and share findings to promote innovation. You'll provide guidance when capturing processes and contribute to ethics and privacy policies related to research processes and data collection. | |