Senior Applied Scientist - Outlook Science Team

Overview

The Outlook team at Microsoft is reimagining how people communicate, organize their work, and manage time through intelligent, trustworthy experiences across Mail and Calendar. We build products used at global scale, including Copilot-powered experiences for drafting, summarization, search, inbox prioritization, meeting preparation, scheduling, and agentic workflows. Our work spans product analytics, experimentation, telemetry, machine learning, generative AI, and large language model evaluation to improve customer value, quality, trust, and adoption across Outlook experiences.

As a Senior Applied Scientist, you will play a critical role in advancing Outlook's Copilot efforts in the areas of Large Language Model (LLM), Evaluation, Relevance and Responsible AI (RAI). This multifaceted role is responsible for developing an end-to-end infrastructure and measurement framework, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging data science and AI experience to guide decision-making. The successful candidate will work with multiple large organizations and stakeholders to drive the evaluation of LLM systems and associated components.

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

• Strategic Leadership: Develop and execute a comprehensive strategy for LLM evaluation, encompassing LLM quality, costs, model performance, model utility (user experience and prompt effectiveness), and responsible AI considerations, in alignment with company-wide efforts and informed by emerging research. Propose and drive cost effective solutions such as small language models (SLMs), finetuned models and ensemble models.

• Program Management: Oversee and manage large-scale, cross-functional evaluation programs, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and timelines. Develop and maintain a robust measurement framework to track and report on LLM performance and user impact. Drive engineering product roadmap to construct automated evaluation pipelines integrated into the product workflow.

• Applied Science Experience: Utilize data science skills to design experimentation, analyze data, create OKRs, create measurement and metrics, and derive actionable insights to enhance LLM systems. Responsible for influencing product and user experience based on evaluation results.

• Model and Agent Evaluation: Lead efforts to assess and improve the performance and effectiveness of language models and agents, driving iterative enhancements, including synthetic and manufactured data creation.

• User Experience Enhancement: Collaborate with User Experience teams to evaluate and optimize user interactions with AI systems, enhancing user satisfaction.

• Responsible AI (RAI): Implement RAI and DSB principles and guidelines in AI systems, ensuring ethical and unbiased practices in model development and deployment.

• Contribute to the LLM research body: Form partnerships and lead deep research initiatives in areas of LLM evaluation and user experience optimization that contribute to the scientific body and deepen the product team's understanding and expertise of user mental models of and alignment to LLM-powered experience.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with engineering, research, product, and other teams to ensure seamless integration of evaluation processes into the development lifecycle.

• Stakeholder Engagement: Communicate findings and recommendations to executive leadership, fostering a data-driven culture within the organization.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor'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 Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ 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.

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., Data Science, Computer Science, Social science, HCI, etc.)
• Experience in data science, machine learning, experimentation, and AI, with a track record of delivering impactful results.
• Experience in program management and leading cross-functional teams.
• Experience with LLM in finetuning, reinforcement learning, evaluation techniques, implementing RAG techniques, agentic workflows and industry best practices.
• Development experience in Python
• Analytical, problem-solving and presentation skills.
• Understanding of responsible AI principles.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.

Compensation

Position Level: Applied Sciences IC4

Base Pay Range (U.S.): USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year

Base Pay Range (San Francisco Bay Area and New York City Metropolitan Area): USD $160,200 - $261,000 per year

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information at https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Application Timeline

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Equal Opportunity

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.