Principal Applied Scientist - Microsoft 365 Copilot

Our team is responsible for the core systems that power [Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-microsoft365-chat) delivering intelligence, quality, and transformative new features. We work at the intersection of research and engineering—advancing orchestrator reasoning, training next-generation models, and shipping impactful, model-driven experiences in Microsoft 365 Copilot.

As a Principal Applied Scientist - Microsoft 365 Copilot, you will:

• Evolve our orchestrator to reason more effectively, respond faster, and support new capabilities in multi-modality, agent-based systems, and beyond
• Advance the state of the art in model training—including post-training methods such as fine-tuning and reinforcement learning, high-quality data curation, and experimentation with frontier model training
• Build and deliver model-driven features from concept to production—spanning model development, evaluation, metrics, and A/B testing

Recent launches like [Analyst Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft Community Hub](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/analyst-agent-in-microsoft-365-copilot/4397191) showcase the breadth and depth of impact you’ll help drive across the stack.

This role requires you to be onsite 3 days a week in Microsoft's offices in Redmond, WA.  

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

• Conduct research and development to push the boundaries of model training, evaluation, and quality assessment for AI solutions.
• Post-train LLMs for enterprise scenarios M365 Copilot and on tenant data to enable task-specific agents and solutions within the enterprise ecosystem.
• Collaborate with engineers and researchers to advance deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), multimodal models, and model optimization techniques.
• Measure, analyze, and report on model performance, quality, and impact using predictive analytics and statistical methodologies.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years of experience with end-to-end in a challenging technical problem domain (plan, design, execution, continuous release, and service operation).
  
• 4+ years experience with shipping internet scale, low latency and high throughput systems AI products.
  
• 4+ years experience with customer/End-result/Metrics driven in design and development.

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:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications: