Senior Researcher

We’re a company of learn-it-alls rather than know-it-alls and our culture is centered around embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. Does this sound like you? Learn more about our cultural attributes. 

Are you ready to join us and create the future as a Senior Researcher? Come as you are, do what you love—start your journey with us today! 

Come build community, explore your passions, and do your best work at Microsoft with thousands of people from every corner of the world.  

Conduct research and lead research collaborations that yield new insights, theories, analyses, data, algorithms, and/or prototypes that advance the state-of-the-art of computer science and engineering, as well as general scientific knowledge. This opportunity will allow you to formulate research problems in an area of study and initiates the design, development, execution, and implementation of a research agenda to further academic knowledge and close identified gaps. You will provide expertise to product or business groups and may create long-term business opportunities through research outcomes but not responsible for addressing immediate product needs or demonstrating a clear path to product.

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. Learn more about our

Required Qualifications

• Doctorate (or currently pursuing) in relevant field
  • OR equivalent experience. 

Preferred Qualifications

• A pulication record at top conferences (e.g. NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CHI, etc.)

Research Sciences IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $117,200 - $229,200 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 $153,600 - $250,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
  

Microsoft will accept applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

Execution of Research Agendas

• Gain an understanding of a broad area of research (e.g., Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Foundation Models, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Statistical Modeling, Deep Learning, etc.) and the corresponding literature and applicable research techniques.

Identifies the solvable components of a larger research problem.

• Under instruction from others, research new tools, technologies, and methods being used in the research community. Contribute knowledge around a specialized tool/method to support planning for research projects.
• Bring a component of a research project to successful completion yielding new algorithms, prototypes, theories, tools, methods, analyses, insights, or collections of data which solve one or more components of larger research problem.
• Understand and follow ethics and privacy policies when executing research processes and/or collecting data/information. Help develop and deploy computing technologies that uphold trustworthiness, robustness, privacy, values, and ethical considerations.  

Impact

• Gain an understanding of research as it relates to Microsoft products or business groups and assist in technology transfer attempts, participate on standards organizations, file patents, author white papers, develop or maintain tools/services for internal Microsoft use, or consult for product or business groups.
• Collaborate with members of research group to contribute to existing work on a research problem and assist in writing and/or presenting papers at workshops and conferences. Publish papers as co-author or lead author for high-quality conferences and journals, with an impact like that of a post-doctorate.      

Capability Building

• Supports mentorship by assisting with onboarding of research interns or other entry-level team members.