Senior Applied Scientist - Copilot & Agents

• Develop scientific approaches for evaluating and improving LLM reasoning, grounding, retrieval and agentic behaviors using offline benchmarking, online experimentation and large-scale telemetry analysis.
• Drive complex technical investigations, model evaluations and experimentation to improve quality, reliability, latency, cost efficiency and user experience.
• Define and execute rigorous evaluation methodologies, offline benchmarks, online experimentation frameworks and data-driven approaches for measuring model and product performance.
• Partner closely with engineering and product teams to translate research innovations into scalable, production-ready systems used by millions of customers.
• Deeply analyze model behavior, failure modes, grounding effectiveness, reasoning quality, tool use, retrieval performance and orchestration outcomes to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Develop and advance approaches for agentic workflows, multi-step reasoning, planning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool orchestration and reinforcement-learning-based optimization.
• Review technical designs, experimental results and implementation approaches to ensure high standards of scientific rigor, reproducibility and engineering excellence.
• Collaborate with researchers, applied scientists and engineers to solve challenging technical problems spanning LLMs, machine learning, deep learning, information retrieval and human-AI interaction.
• Stay current with advances in Large Language Models, reasoning systems, agent architectures, reinforcement learning and applied AI, incorporating relevant innovations into production systems.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND demonstrated professional 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 demonstrated professional related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND demonstrated professional related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
• OR equivalent 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 Qualification:

• A Ph.D. in Computer Science, Math, Physics, Statistics, or related areas. Candidates with master’s degree with industry experience or publication record in the areas of Information Retrieval, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing are considered as well.
• Demonstrated professional working as an IC in Machine Learning, Large Language Models, Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Recommendation Systems or related fields.
• Professional experience developing ML models for scaled production services, with a proven track record of successfully shipping applied research to production .
• Experience designing and implementing agentic AI models and systems.

Applied Sciences IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across United Kingdom is £ 74,700.00 - £ 122,600.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

We’re looking for a Senior Applied Scientist with deep expertise in Applied AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, and a proven track record of delivering innovative, user-facing AI experiences at scale. This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of enterprise productivity through cutting-edge Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI-powered experiences in Microsoft 365 Copilot, one of Microsoft’s flagship products.

You will join a fast-paced, highly collaborative team of scientists, engineers, and product managers working at the forefront of AI innovation. In this role, you will drive the development of advanced LLM-based capabilities, reasoning systems, and real-time orchestration platforms, translating state-of-the-art research into impactful experiences for millions of enterprise users. Your work will directly influence product strategy, model quality, and the next generation of intelligent productivity solutions across Microsoft 365.

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.