Microsoft Research (MSR) AI Frontiers lab is seeking applications for the position of Principal Researcher to join their team. This role can be located in any one of our 3 labs: New York City, NY, Cambridge, MA, and Redmond, WA. 

The mission of the AI Frontiers lab is to expand the pareto frontier of Artficial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, efficiency, and safety through innovations in foundation models and learning agent platforms. Some of our projects include work on Small Language Models (e.g. Phi, Orca), foundation models for actions (e.g., in gaming, robotics, and Office productivity tools) and Multi-Agent AI (e.g. AutoGen).  

We are seeking a Principal Researcher to join our team and contribute to the advancement of Large Action Model (LAM) and Large Language Model (LLM) technologies. As a Principal Researcher, you will play a crucial role in developing, improving, and exploring the capabilities of AI models. Your work will have a significant impact on the development of cutting-edge technologies, advancing state-of-the-art and providing practical solutions to real-world problems.    

Our ongoing research areas encompass but are not limited to:  

• Pre-training: especially of language models, action models and multimodal models  

• Alignment and Post-training: e.g., Instruction tuning and reinforcement learning from feedback  

• Continual Learning: Enabling LLMs to evolve and adapt over time and learn from previous experiences human interactions  

• Specialization: Tailoring models to meet application-specific requirements  

• Orchestration and multi-agent systems: automated orchestration between multiple agents incorporating human feedback and oversight  

Microsoft Research (MSR) offers a vibrant environment for cutting-edge, multidisciplinary, research, including access to diverse, real-world problems and data, opportunities for experimentation and real-world impact, an open publication policy, and close links to top academic institutions around the world. 

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

• As a Principal Researcher in AI Frontiers, you will design, develop, execute, and implement technology research projects in collaboration with other researchers, engineers, and product groups.   
• As a member of a world-class research organization, you will be a part of research breakthroughs in the field and will be given an opportunity to realize your ideas in products and services used worldwide. 
• Embody our culture and values.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications   

• Doctorate in Computer Science or relevant field AND 3+ years related research experience 
  • OR equivalent experience. 
• Research program demonstrated by publications at conferences: NeurIPS, ICML,ICLR, ACL, NAACL, CVPR, COLT, ECCV, ICCV, EMNLP

Preferred Qualifications  

• Doctorate in Computer Science or relevant field AND 8+ years related research experience 
  • OR equivalent experience.  

• Experience with real world reinforcement learning, including large scale behavior cloning and policy optimization.   

• Experience in creating, optimizing and running large scale machine learning pipelines  

• Experience in running large scale experiments with LLMs pre-training and/or finetuning  

• Experience in building data collection and curation pipelines.  

• Ability to collaborate, communicate effectively, and work as part of a multi-disciplinary team.    

• Keen interest in real-world applications and impact.
• Reference letters are welcomed, though they are not mandatory. Please include them, if available.

Research Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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