Senior Applied Scientist

The Microsoft Teams Mobile team is reimagining how individuals and organizations collaborate on-the-go enabling seamless intelligent communication from any device anywhere As we bring next-generation AI into the mobile productivity experience we re looking for a Senior Applied Scientist to lead the integration and evaluation of Large Language Models LLMs SLMs and AI-Native use cases into our mobile-first scenarios In this role you ll drive innovation at the intersection of AI user interaction and mobile UX influencing key aspects of LLM evaluation prompt engineering cost-optimized finetuning and responsible AI RAI deployment in a mobile context You ll collaborate across engineering product design and research to ensure our AI-powered mobile experiences are fast trustworthy helpful and delightful This role offers the opportunity to shape how millions of users experience AI-enhanced productivity on their phones from real-time meeting summaries to intelligent message replies and mobile agentic workflows 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 AI Strategy Leadership Develop and execute the strategy for LLM evaluation and finetuning for mobile scenarios balancing quality cost speed and power resource constraints Champion the use of SLMs and custom-tuned models to deliver efficient and reliable performance on mobile devices LLM Prompt Evaluation Design and lead experiments that assess the performance effectiveness and safety of language models and prompts in mobile contexts Leverage synthetic and user-generated data to continuously improve prompt quality and user experience Mobile-Centric AI Experiences Partner with UX product and engineering teams to optimize AI workflows for mobile-specific use cases e g on-device summarization smart notifications multimodal interactions Translate complex scientific insights into product features that enhance real-time communication and collaboration on mobile Program Management Infrastructure Own and evolve the end-to-end evaluation pipeline ensuring seamless integration with product development cycles Develop robust measurement frameworks and dashboards to report on LLM performance user utility and business impact Responsible AI Apply Microsoft s Responsible AI principles to ensure the AI in Teams Mobile is safe inclusive transparent and accountable Proactively identify and mitigate bias hallucinations and privacy risks especially in mobile-centric experiences Cross-Team Collaboration Thought Leadership Drive alignment across Microsoft Teams M365 Copilot Azure OpenAI and research partners Contribute to internal and external research in LLM evaluation mobile UX and agentic AI including publications white papers or patents 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 6 years related experience e g statistics predictive analytics research OR Doctorate in Statistics Econometrics Computer Science Electrical or Computer Engineering or related field AND 5 year s related experience e g statistics predictive analytics research OR equivalent experience Proven experience applying machine learning and LLMs to real-world product scenarios Deep expertise in Prompt engineering Finetuning and SLM optimization Evaluation frameworks for LLM quality utility latency and cost RAG agentic workflows and multi-turn dialogue systems Solid development skills in Python and hands-on experience building ML AI pipelines Experience leading complex cross-functional technical programs or research initiatives Strong analytical problem-solving and communication skills Demonstrated understanding of Responsible AI principles especially in privacy-constrained or mobile environments 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 Ph D or Master s in a relevant field e g Computer Science Machine Learning Data Science HCI Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age ancestry color family or medical care leave gender identity or expression genetic information marital status medical condition national origin physical or mental disability political affiliation protected veteran status race religion sex including pregnancy sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws regulations and ordinances We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories consistent with legal requirements If you need assistance and or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process please send a request via the CAPIDC