# Principal Applied Scientist

**Company**: Microsoft AI
**Location**: Beijing, China
**Work arrangement**: onsite
**Experience**: senior
**Job type**: full-time
**Salary**: Competitive salary and benefits package
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Technology

**Apply**: https://microsoft.ai/job/principal-applied-scientist-12/
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_146f30de-73a

## Description

## Summary

Microsoft AI are looking for a talented Principal Applied Scientist at their Beijing office. This role sits at the heart of strategic decision-making, turning market data into actionable insights for a company that's revolutionising the field of AI. You'll work directly with leadership to shape the company's direction in the AI market.

## About the Role

We are seeking an Applied Scientist / AI Architect with strong hands-on experience in building and optimizing large language models (LLMs), agentic AI systems, and end-to-end model training workflows. This role is ideal for scientists with a solid applied background who can translate state-of-the-art research into real-world impact. A research-oriented mindset with publications in top AI/ML venues is highly preferred but not strictly required.

## Accountabilities

- Design and implement advanced LLM-based architectures and agentic systems for real-world product scenarios.

- Translate research breakthroughs into production-ready algorithms, contributing to core capabilities such as reasoning, planning, long-term memory, code-gen based design.

- Monitor and improve model performance post-deployment through data-driven iteration and error analysis.

- Collaborate across teams to deliver robust, scalable models aligned with product objectives and user value.

- Contribute to the organization’s scientific direction by identifying research opportunities that drive long-term differentiation.

## The Candidate we're looking for

**Experience:**

- M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

- 5+ years of experience in applied machine learning, with a focus on LLMs, agent systems, or reinforcement learning.

**Technical skills:**

- Strong hands-on experience with prompt engineering, context engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool use, planning agents, and long-context modeling, etc.

- Familiarity with model training pipelines using PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, or similar frameworks, evaluation strategies, and model deployment best practices.

**Personal attributes:**

- Strong coding and debugging skills, and comfort working in cross-functional, agile environments.

## Benefits

- Competitive salary and benefits package.

- Opportunities for professional growth and development.

- Collaborative and dynamic work environment.

- Access to cutting-edge technology and resources.

## Skills

### Required
- Applied machine learning
- LLMs
- Agent systems
- Reinforcement learning
- PyTorch
- TensorFlow
- JAX

### Nice to have
- Prompt engineering
- Context engineering
- RAG
- Tool use
- Planning agents
- Long-context modeling