New 
Senior Applied Scientist
 Microsoft | |
 United States, Washington, Redmond | |
 Oct 05, 2025 | |
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OverviewIDEAS Research in Microsoft's productivity division is hiring Senior Applied Scientists to help maximize the incredible potential of AI to facilitate the next generation of human productivity. IDEAS is the central data organization for Microsoft's productivity division, and the research team works at the intersection of computer science, economics, and behavioral science. We bring together rigorous analytic science and technical innovation. Our scientists collaborate closely with people across Microsoft's product teams and Microsoft Research to see their ideas realized in products and services like M365 Copilot and the broader M365 productivity application suite. We also contribute back to the scientific community through peer-reviewed publications at top venues, scientific presentations, and beyond. We are looking forSenior Applied Scientistswho are intellectually creative, self-driven, curious, people-oriented and comfortable defining a path through ambiguity towards high-level goals. Strong applicants have demonstrated ability to create and drive a research agenda that pushes scientific and technological frontiers and that yields real-world value. Research areas of interest include but are not limited to reinforcement learning, agentic systems, multimodal AI, post-training techniques and their application, domain-specific large language model (LLM) applications, personalization, computational social science, agentic retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI interpretability, AI alignment, collaborative AI, and the economics of AI. 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.
ResponsibilitiesDefining, leading, and helping to conduct research projects that simultaneously advance the state-of-the-art and directly benefit Microsoft's core productivity products. Shaping strategy and product direction by integrating rigorous scientific methods into the product understanding and development lifecycle. Collaborating and coordinatingwith people in a range of roles, including researchers,engineers, product managers, designers, and other key product stakeholders.Servingas a bridge between research and product. Sharingyour researchwith others via a range of means, including publication,to enable others to build onyourwork and tocontribute tothe understanding of our productsas cutting-edge and science driven. Effectively communicating with product leaders (and often Microsoft researchers (MSR) throughout the planning and execution of applied research projects, which often involves learning and teaching complex concepts. Embody our culture and values | |