Applied Scientist II at Microsoft

Redmond, Washington, United States -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

12 Jun, 26

Salary

215400.0

Posted On

14 Mar, 26

Experience

2 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

LLMs, SLMs, Model Reasoning, Model Compression, Model Alignment, Distillation, Chain-of-Thought, Inference Pipelines, Model Serving, Training, Experimentation, Search Retrieval, Ranking Models, Relevance Optimization, PyTorch, TensorFlow

Industry

Software Development

Description

Overview Are you interested in solving large‑scale search problems and building next‑generation of Query Understanding solutions powered by LLMs and SLMs? If yes, the Bing Orca team is for you! The Orca team is a research‑driven applied science and engineering group building the next generation of efficient, scalable, and highly capable AI models. Our mission is to push the boundaries of model reasoning, compression, and alignment—making advanced intelligence accessible, reliable, and cost‑effective across Microsoft’s ecosystem. We’re known for pioneering techniques that help compact models learn rich reasoning abilities from frontier‑scale teachers. But we don’t stop at research: we also own the end‑to‑end infrastructure, tooling, and runtime systems that bring these models to life in production. Our work spans deep research, large‑scale engineering, and real‑world product impact: Advanced Model Research Develop novel distillation and compression methods Explore chain‑of‑thought, multi‑step reasoning, and structured supervision Build evaluation frameworks that measure reasoning, robustness, and safety Production‑Grade Infrastructure & Hosting Own the full model‑serving stack for Orca models Build high‑performance inference pipelines optimized for latency, throughput, and cost Maintain high availability, stability, and reliability across global deployments Design scalable systems that support rapid experimentation and safe rollout of new model variants Training & Experimentation at Scale Run large‑scale training jobs and ablation studies Develop internal tools that accelerate research velocity Collaborate with platform teams to optimize compute efficiency Real‑World Impact Our systems & models serve users in 100+ markets worldwide, handling 100M+ queries and interactions every day. We are hiring an Applied Scientist II to join our world of search retrieval, ranking, relevance optimization, driving real user impact in production systems at global scale. 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. 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 Develop, train, and evaluate machine learning models with guidance from senior scientists. Implement model improvements through experimentation, data analysis, and iterative refinement. Contribute to the team’s core codebase, including training pipelines, evaluation tools, and automation. Build and maintain tooling that improves research velocity, experiment tracking, and model debugging. Support the development and operation of model‑serving infrastructure with a focus on reliability and performance. Collaborate with engineers and researchers to bring models from prototype to production‑ready systems. Participate in code reviews, documentation, and best‑practice engineering processes. Qualifications Required Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, 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 Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience. Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 5+ 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. Ability to collaborate effectively in a fast‑paced research and engineering environment. Solid problem‑solving skills and eagerness to learn new methods, tools, and systems. Experience training, fine‑tuning, and evaluating small or efficient language models (SLMs) at scale. Familiarity with PyTorch or TensorFlow and common ML tooling Experience with Search and Query Understanding, including ranking models, retrieval pipelines, relevance evaluation, or semantic understanding of queries is a huge plus. Solid ability to translate research ideas into reliable, maintainable code. Demonstrated ability to work effectively with cross‑functional teams, including researchers, engineers, and product partners. #MicrosoftAI #MAI #Bing #Search Applied Sciences IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $100,600 - $199,000 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 $131,400 - $215,400 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. 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.

Responsibilities

The role involves developing, training, and evaluating machine learning models, implementing improvements through experimentation, and contributing to the core codebase including training pipelines and evaluation tools. Responsibilities also include supporting model-serving infrastructure reliability and collaborating to move models from prototype to production systems.