Senior Applied Scientist
Microsoft
Do you want to revolutionize how people consume news using cutting-edge AI technologies? Are you excited to work in a fast-paced search and AI innovation team?
The News in search team owns the news search product on Bing, provides news grounding data for Microsoft Copilot products and 3rd party AI customers. We build an end-to-end technology stack—from infrastructure to AI models to UX—to deliver world-class news search experiences for Bing and Microsoft customers.
Our mission is to make searching and reading news simpler, smarter, and more immersive across media and devices in the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond.
We target to find an expert to lead the transition of news e2e tech stack to new architect tailored for grounding, which can power news search experience across Bing, Copilot and 3rd party customers faster with better quality and capabilities.
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.
Starting January 26, 2026, Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.
Responsibilities
- Design and build scalable, high-performance platform and grounding services for real-time processing of streaming news content and serving user queries with low latency.
- Apply AI and machine learning to solve challenging problems in news Index, content understanding, query understanding, trending detection, ranking, and quality improvement for relevance, freshness, and authority, especially for grounding scenario.
- Acts as a designated responsible individual (DRI), work with partners and v-team members to understand requirements, define roadmap, lead execution, unblock issues, deliver mission on time.
- Proactively learn and leverage engineer excellence practice from partner teams, build collaboration with partners.
- Maintain system performance, security and compliance.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ 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 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
- OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
- OR equivalent experience.
- Solid background in platform, AI/ML, including experience with search platform, grounding platform, ranking systems, natural language processing, with more than 4 years of working experience
- Proficiency in programming languages such as C++, C#, Java, or Python, and familiarity with distributed systems.
- Experience in building news or content consumption platform or product.
- Passion for news and AI-driven innovation, with an understanding of user needs in news consumption.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and collaborate across disciplines.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 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 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
- OR equivalent experience.
- Solid background in platform, AI/ML, including experience with search platform, grounding platform, ranking systems, natural language processing, with more than 5 years of working experience.
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.