Software Engineering at Microsoft

Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

18 Feb, 26

Salary

0.0

Posted On

20 Nov, 25

Experience

2 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

Python, Model Fine-Tuning, Prompt Authoring, Performance Optimization, Data Pipelines, Developer Tools, Community Engagement, Data Collection, Data Cleaning

Industry

Software Development

Description

Overview Visual Studio Code is looking for a research engineer. You will mostly be focused on the prompt and model side of our AI features, and you should feel equally comfortable coding relevant product features. You will be working with incredibly knowledgeable and motivated peers in a fast-paced and supportive environment. Visual Studio Code is a lightweight, cross-platform AI code editor used by millions of developers across the globe. Details are at https://code.visualstudio.com, our code is at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode. The VS Code team develops the VS Code product as well as significant extensions such as the Python, Remote-SSH, Dev Containers, and WSL. Required Basic Qualifications: - MS in CS, Applied Math or a comparable degree and field - Experience as an IC - Excellent Python coding skills - Demonstrated excellence in fine-tuning models that have been used in production - Demonstrated excellence in prompt authoring and refinement - Deep understanding of performance optimization of LLM calls - Deep understanding of data pipelines More about you: - You have a passion for great developer tools and enjoy working with developers. - You are an avid learner and self-starter, and you like to be challenged. - You possess a can-do attitude and a strong desire to innovate. Responsibilities More and more of our features are powered by models. These can be vanilla models like Claude Sonnet 4.5, GPT 5, or fine-tuned versions of 4.1-mini or fitting open-weight models. Your work will include: - Improve prompts to lower TTFT as well as increase the quality of the responses - Analyze the product and identify opportunities for custom model usage - Create datasets for model fine-tuning - Improve our engineering processes and tools around data collection, data cleaning, and fine-tuning - Interact with our users on GitHub and on social channels - Drive community engagement through blog posts and conference and meetup presentations Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter. Qualifications Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form. Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work. 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

You will improve prompts to enhance response quality and reduce time-to-first-try (TTFT). Additionally, you will analyze the product for custom model opportunities and create datasets for model fine-tuning.