Principal Data Scientist

Cloud migration is one of the most critical steps in modernizing enterprise IT, and Azure Migrate is at the forefront of enabling this transformation. Our team is innovating with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reimagine how migrations are planned, executed, and optimized—bringing intelligence, adaptability, and precision to every customer journey. You'll be part of a dynamic engineering team that blends deep platform expertise with cutting-edge AI capabilities to simplify complex migration scenarios and deliver seamless cloud adoption experiences.

As a Principal Data Scientist in Azure Migrate, you will develop intelligent models and data-driven capabilities that guide customers through their cloud migration journey with precision and confidence. You'll work on designing predictive systems, uncovering actionable insights from large-scale telemetry, and building adaptive experiences that improve migration outcomes. Azure Migrate is a cornerstone of Azure's growth strategy—empowering customers to move critical workloads to the cloud and driving long-term platform adoption. Your work will directly influence customer success, shape product direction, and contribute to one of Microsoft's most impactful cloud services. Flexible work options are available, including partial work-from-home arrangements.

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.

• You will understand where to acquire the data necessary for your project plan and use querying, visualization, and reporting techniques to describe that data. You'll also explore data for key attributes and collaborate with others to perform data science experiments using established methodologies.
• You will understand modeling techniques, select the correct tool and approach to complete objectives, and evaluate the output for statistical and business significance. You'll also analyze model performance and incorporate customer feedback into its evaluation.
• You will understand the current state of the industry, including current trends, so that you can contribute to thought leadership best practices. You'll also write efficient code for a specific feature, and develop a working expertise of proper debugging techniques.
• You will understand each customer's business goals and learn best practices for identifying growth opportunities. You'll also examine projects through a customer-oriented focus, and manage customer expectations regarding project progress.
  Build and manage large-scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) experiments and models.
• Drive experimentation through A/B testing and offline validation to evaluate model performance.

Required Qualifications: 

• Doctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)

  • OR Master's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 7+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techn

  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years data science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical te

  • OR equivalent experience.

• 5+ years customer-facing, project-delivery experience, professional services, and/or consulting experience.

• 5+ year(s) experience with strong proficiency in Python, machine learning frameworks, and experience developing and deploying generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or machine learning models into production.

Other Qualifications: 

• 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:

• Doctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science,
  • OR related field AND 10+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)
  • OR Master's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science,
• 1+ year(s) experience with strong professional experience in statistics and machine learning, including deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), and econometrics; experience in building cloud-scale systems and working with open-source stacks for data processing and data science is desirable.
• 1+ year(s) experience with large language models (LLMs) in natural language, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for code or related fields, excellent communication skills with ability to present and write reports, strong teamwork and collaboration skills, and experience in productizing AI and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams.

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 Accommodation request form.

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

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