Senior Applied Scientist

The Microsoft Word Writing Assistance and Language Intelligence team located in Redmond, Washington build large scale natural language understanding and natural language generation models using cutting edge Natural Language Processing technologies and advanced linguistic knowledge. The team has a 25-year track record of delivering innovative AI-powered writing assistance solutions to millions of users worldwide with a vision of bringing out the best writer in everyone. The team have recently launched a set of groundbreaking Copilot features that help users to dramatically enhance productivity and creativity throughout their writing journey from start to finish.   

As a Senior Applied Scientist in the team, you will drive intelligence experience projects through their entire life cycle from idea creation through rigorous science experiments, evaluations, and finally to worldwide availability. You will collaborate with other applied scientists, researchers, engineers, and product managers to deliver high-quality features and products that enhance the writing experience across multiple platforms and domains. You will also conduct cutting-edge applied research leading to high product impact and publish your work in top-tier conferences and journals. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, develop deep business acumen, and hone your scientific skills. You will have the flexibility to work from home partially or fully, depending on your preference and location. We value work-life balance and support our team members to achieve their personal and professional goals. 

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. 

The mission of the team is to advance intelligent reading and writing assistance in M365 and to make fundamental contributions to advancing the state-of-the-art in language technology within Microsoft and in industry. As a senioar applied scientist, your responsibilities include:  

• You will review business and product requirements and incorporate state-of-the-art research to formulate plans that will meet business goals. 
• You will research and develop an understanding of tools, technologies, and methods being used in the community that can be utilized to improve product quality, performance, or efficiency. 
• You will stay updated with the latest research and trends in NLP and related fields and explore new ideas and opportunities for innovation. 
• You will participate in onboarding of junior team members. You'll identify new research talent to join Microsoft and collaborate with the academic community to develop the recruiting pipeline. 
• You will document work in progress and experimentation results and share findings to promote innovation. You'll also use your deep understanding of fairness and bias to contribute to ethics and privacy policies related to research processes and data collection. 

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 5+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of research or product experience in NLP. 
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in Deep Learning using PyTorch or similar. 
• 3+ years of software engineering experience in Python or C#. 
• Effective communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills and a customer-centric mindset. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD degree in Computational Linguistics or Computer Science with a focus on NLP. 
• Fluency with recent NLP & LLM advancement as well as a driven passion for discovering the next generation of technology. 
• Experience conducting applied research and publishing papers. 
• Experience working in collaborative multiple team environment and ship production features in a fast-paced environment. 

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. 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 Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.