Microsoft

Applied Scientist II

Microsoft$102K — $202K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's in Computer Science or related field OR equivalent experience
  • 2+ years in statistics, predictive analytics, or research
  • Master's or Doctorate in a relevant field is preferred
  • Experience in large-scale online marketplaces or ads systems
  • Proven skills in machine learning models and feature engineering
  • Strong Python programming skills and familiarity with ML frameworks

Responsibilities

  • Drive modeling innovations for user response in advertising
  • Develop evaluation frameworks to assess model impacts
  • Manage end-to-end model training and data pipelines
  • Ensure reliability and health of the modeling stack
  • Collaborate across teams on modeling efforts

Benefits

  • Work in a dynamic environment with a focus on innovation
  • Opportunity to contribute to large-scale ML systems that drive revenue
  • Hands-on role with direct impact on real-world outcomes
  • Collaborative work culture with cross-functional teams
  • Flexibility expected in office attendance based on location laws
Full Job Description
Overview

Our team (Signals Modeling) builds the core intelligence that understands and predicts how users interact with ads - from the first impression through clicks, post-click engagement, and downstream business outcomes.

We design and train text and numerical models with billions of parameters that power ad ranking across large-scale consumer surfaces. The team owns end-to-end ML systems, including large-scale data and label construction, representation learning, multi-task and proxy objectives, calibration, and rigorous offline and online evaluation. We build sophisticated training pipelines that transform weak signals (e.g., page visits, dwell time, or engagement events) into high-quality learning targets.

Engineers and scientists on the team work at the intersection of deep learning, large-scale experimentation, and marketplace economics, shipping production-grade models and data pipelines that directly drive revenue and advertiser ROI. This is a hands-on builder role where you will see your models make measurable impact in one of the world's largest ads ecosystems.

Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities
  • Drive modeling and data innovations for user response modeling for advertising.
  • Develop rigorous evaluation and experimentation frameworks to assess impact of model improvements on the marketplace.
  • Own model training and data pipelines end-to-end, ensuring the reliability and overall health of the modeling stack.


Qualifications

Required Qualifications:
  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 2+ 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 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
    • OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field
    • OR equivalent experience.


Preferred Qualifications:
  • Master's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
    • OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
  • Experience with large-scale online marketplaces or ads/recommendation systems.
  • Proven technical ability in cross-team modeling efforts or platform-level ML systems.
  • 2+ years of industry experience building and shipping machine learning models in production.
  • Proven experience with modern ML models (e.g., deep learning, tree-based models, or linear models) and feature engineering.
  • Understanding of supervised learning and multi-task learning.
  • Practical experience working with large-scale, real-world data and building end-to-end modeling pipelines (data preparation, training, validation, deployment).
  • Experience with offline evaluation and online A/B experimentation for ML systems.
  • Proven programming skills in Python and at least one major ML framework (e.g., PyTorch or TensorFlow).
  • Ability to independently drive modeling projects from problem definition through production and iteration.


#MicrosoftAI

Applied Sciences IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $133,800 - $219,200 per year.

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

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

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
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