Microsoft

Principal Applied Science Manager - Outlook Science Team

Microsoft • $165K — $296K *
Mountain View, CA 94040In-Person
Consumer Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Today
Be an Early Applicant
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or higher in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field with relevant experience
  • 8+ years experience in statistics, predictive analytics, or research (or equivalent combination of education and experience)
  • 3+ years of people management experience
  • 10+ years in applied science, machine learning, data science, or large-scale AI systems preferred
  • Demonstrated leadership in applied science teams or major initiatives preferred

Responsibilities

  • Lead and expand a team focused on AI quality and product improvement
  • Define standards for AI-powered communication and experiences
  • Build scalable evaluation systems with human inputs and data-driven analyses
  • Drive enhancements across critical quality metrics like recall and precision
  • Diagnose production failures in complex systems
  • Translate user dissatisfaction and telemetry into actionable insights
  • Collaborate with PM and engineering leaders for data-driven improvements
  • Develop adaptation strategies for frontier AI models

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health benefits
  • Retirement plan options
  • Opportunities for professional development
  • Flexible working arrangements
  • Employee discounts and perks
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

  • Lead and grow a team of applied scientists focused on AI quality, evaluation, post-training, and product improvement.
  • Define what "good" looks like for AI-powered communication, summarization, search, recommendation, and agentic experiences.
  • Build scalable evaluation systems combining human labels, LLM graders, telemetry, shadow experiments, online A/B testing, and root-cause analysis.
  • Drive improvements across critical quality dimensions, including recall, precision, grounding, freshness, ranking, personalization, actionability, hallucination reduction, and end-to-end task completion.
  • Diagnose complex production failures involving user context, long-running conversations, tool use, memory, retrieval, ranking, and evolving product state.
  • Translate user feedback, dissatisfaction signals, and production telemetry into actionable science and product insights.
  • Partner closely with PM and engineering leaders to turn evaluation findings into model, prompt, tool, data, and system improvements.
  • Develop post-training and adaptation strategies for frontier and open-source models where they can materially improve product quality.
  • Establish deep connections between offline quality metrics and online outcomes such as user satisfaction, engagement, retention, and successful task completion.
  • Provide technical leadership across teams and mentor senior scientists while maintaining a high bar for scientific rigor, product judgment, and execution.


Qualifications

Required Qualifications:
  • Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 8+ 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 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
    • OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
    • OR equivalent experience.
  • 3+ years of people management 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:
  • 10+ years of experience in applied science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, or large-scale production AI systems.
  • Experience leading applied science teams or major cross-functional science initiatives.
  • Demonstrated experience building, evaluating, or improving production AI or machine-learning systems.
  • Background in experimentation, metrics, telemetry analysis, evaluation, or systematic product-quality improvement.
  • Experience partnering closely with engineering and product teams to translate scientific insights into production impact.
  • Ability to explain complex technical tradeoffs and quality issues to senior stakeholders.
  • PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, NLP, Information Retrieval, Data Mining, or a related technical field.
  • Deep experience with LLMs, agentic systems, post-training, tool use, AI evaluation, or GenAI product development.
  • Experience in one or more of NLP, information retrieval, ranking, recommendation, personalization, summarization, search, or productivity AI.
  • Experience building large-scale evaluation systems using human judgment, LLM graders, telemetry, shadow A/B experiments, or online experimentation.
  • Track record of improving production AI quality across dimensions such as recall, precision, grounding, actionability, personalization, and user trust.
  • Experience connecting offline evaluation improvements to measurable online product outcomes.
  • Experience leading high-visibility AI initiatives in fast-moving product environments.
  • Publication, patent, or research record is valued, but demonstrated product and scientific impact is equally important.

#Outlook; #OPG

Applied Sciences M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $165,600 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 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
Enterprise Technology
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ
MSFT
* Ladders Estimates

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