Microsoft · 13 hours ago
Principal Applied Science Manager - CoreAI
Redmond, WA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$163K/yr - $296K/yr
6+ years expMicrosoft is seeking a Principal Applied Science Manager for their CoreAI organization, which focuses on building the end-to-end Artificial Intelligence stack. The role involves leading the development of novel fine-tuning techniques, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and providing technical leadership to ensure safe and trustworthy AI systems.
Agentic AIApplication Performance ManagementArtificial Intelligence (AI)Business DevelopmentDevOpsInformation ServicesInformation TechnologyManagement Information SystemsNetwork SecuritySoftware
Responsibilities
Lead the development and deployment of novel fine-tuning techniques that leverage synthetic data generation, preference modeling, and advanced training pipelines (e.g., SFT, RL-based methods, hybrid approaches) to improve model alignment at scale
Apply these techniques to train models with stronger alignment properties, including honesty, character, harmlessness, and robustness to misuse, distribution shift, and adversarial inputs
Design, build, and maintain rigorous evaluation frameworks to measure alignment and safety properties across capabilities, failure modes, and deployment contexts, including offline benchmarks, automated probes, and human-in-the-loop evaluations
Collaborate cross-functionally with research, product, infrastructure, and deployment teams to translate alignment improvements into production-ready models, balancing safety, capability, latency, and cost considerations
Establish scalable processes and tooling to automate data generation, training, evaluation, and analysis workflows, enabling the team to iterate rapidly and operate reliably as model size, complexity, and deployment surface grow
Provide technical leadership and people management for a team of applied scientists and engineers, setting clear technical direction, prioritizing high-impact work, and mentoring team members in both research rigor and production excellence
Influence the broader safety and alignment strategy by identifying emerging risks, proposing new mitigation approaches, and contributing to long-term roadmaps for responsible model development
Qualification
Required
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
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
Experience and familiarity with large language models (LLMs)
Experience with and a solid foundation in large distributed systems, algorithms, and software engineering principles
5+ years of experience in a research/ML engineering or an applied research scientist position, ideally with a focus on AI safety
Have hands-on experience with deep learning and transformer-based models
Excel at problem-solving and analytics, with a proactive approach to challenges
Thrive in fast-moving environments where priorities shift and definitions evolve
Enjoy taking ownership end-to-end and learning whatever is necessary to get results
Comfortable working independently while thriving in cross-team collaborations
Understand methods for training and fine-tuning LLMs, including distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization
Company
Microsoft
Microsoft is a software corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
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reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
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2025 (9192)
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2023 (7677)
2022 (11403)
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2020 (7852)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1MKey Investors
Technology Venture Investors
2022-12-09Post Ipo Equity
1986-03-13IPO
1981-09-01Series Unknown· $1M
Leadership Team
Satya Nadella
Chairman and CEO
Vukani Mngxati
Chief Executive Officer - Microsft South Africa
Recent News
2026-01-14
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