{"id":3286074,"url":"https://alion.io/job/microsoft-principal-applied-scientist-12","title":"Principal Applied Scientist","company":{"id":18,"name":"Microsoft","domain":"microsoft.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/microsoft","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Eightfold","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":82,"open_postings":330,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.724,"repost_share":0.003,"time_to_fill_p50_days":29,"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Redmond, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":142800,"max":274800,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":274800},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Red Teaming","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"C#","optional":true},{"name":"Delta Lake","optional":true},{"name":"Embeddings","optional":true},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":true},{"name":"Java","optional":true},{"name":"Microsoft Fabric","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Scala","optional":true},{"name":"Semantic Search","optional":true},{"name":"Spark","optional":true},{"name":"SQL","optional":true},{"name":"Time Series","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-22T00:15:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-27T17:28:25Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"OverviewSecurity represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate.\nThe CogAgents Research team builds intelligent, agentic systems for red teaming-autonomous agents that probe, stress-test, and uncover vulnerabilities in systems at scale. We apply deep learning, large language models, and graph-based models to develop advanced red teaming capabilities for our products, with a focus on agent design, rigorous evaluation, and continuously improving quality and performance.\nWe are looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to lead the design, evaluation, and productization of red teaming agents. In this role, you will translate complex safety and security challenges into rigorous, data-driven solutions, design agents that identify and exploit weaknesses across systems and applications, and build robust evaluation frameworks that measure attack success, coverage, and overall effectiveness. You will use advanced machine learning techniques to systematically improve agent performance, set a high technical bar, and partner closely with product, engineering, and safety teams to deliver measurable impact. This role requires deep applied machine learning expertise, strong experience in agent design and evaluation, and a focus on turning research into real-world capabilities. We invest in our team's health and culture as key drivers of delivering great outcomes for our customers and partners.\nMicrosoft’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.\nResponsibilities\nDesign and build autonomous red-team systems and agents that discover, exploit, and report vulnerabilities in apps and digital infrastructure at scale.\nDevelop agentic workflows leveraging coding agents, RAG, domain knowledge repositories, and tool-integrated agents to accelerate the development, evaluation, and continuous improvement of red-team agents and systems.\nDesign reusable data processing frameworks, canonical data models, and data contracts that accommodate evolving red teaming and business require\nLead architectural decisions across cloud data platforms, distributed compute engines, data lakes, streaming and batch processing, and analytical serving systems, balancing data freshness, correctness, performance, and cost.\nStreamline red-team agent development through automated pipelines for code reviews, failure triage, root-cause analysis, and operational knowledge discovery.\nEstablish governance and quality guardrails for red team agents including automated testing, correctness validation, security reviews, and production-readiness checks.\nEmbody our culture and corporate values.\nQualifications\nRequired Qualifications:\nDoctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)OR Master's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)\nOR Bachelor's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 7+ years data science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)\nOR equivalent experience. \n\nOther 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:\nMicrosoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.\nPreferred Qualifications:\n10+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to Scala, Python, C#, Java OR equivalent experience.\n3+ years of experience in deep learning and development of advanced AI systems and agents\nPractical experience applying AI coding assistants, LLMs, and agentic workflows to software development, code modernization, testing, and engineering automation. \nExperience in RAG, embeddings, semantic search, tool calling, and agent orchestration, with experience implementing appropriate security, correctness, reliability, and human oversight controls.\nDemonstrated understanding of statistical analysis, time-series analytics, anomaly detection, and forecasting.\nExtensive experience in data modeling, analytical data systems, and SQL-based data analysis, including translating ambiguous business requirements into actionable metrics and insights.\nExpertise in architecting, building, and operating production-grade, cloud-native data platforms using Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, or equivalent technologies.\nProven ability to lead cross-team technical initiatives, influence architecture and engineering strategy, navigate ambiguity, and deliver measurable business outcomes.\nDeep proficiency in Apache Spark, Delta Lake, distributed systems, SQL, or large-scale batch and streaming data processing.\nData Science IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.\nCertain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:\nhttps://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay\nThis position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.\nMicrosoft 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. 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