Applied Sciences PhD Specialist

Overview

Start Date: July 2026

Contract Type: Full-Time (40hrs/week)

Location: London or Cambridge, United Kingdom

Come build community, explore your passions and do your best work at Microsoft. This opportunity will allow you to bring your aspirations, talent, potential and excitement for the journey ahead.

The Microsoft Search, Assistant, and Intelligence (MSAI) team leads the development of cutting-edge AI solutions for Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing natural language understanding and intelligent search capabilities to the productivity tools used by millions every day.

As an Applied Sciences Specialist, you will be at the forefront of technological innovation, working collaboratively to bring research to life in our products and services. You will contribute directly to the evolution of Microsoft 365 Copilot, working on advanced search and recommendation systems powered by large language models (LLMs). You’ll be part of a team that transforms how users interact with information, helping them work smarter and faster. This is a flexible work opportunity where you will be expected to work at least 50% from our London Paddington or Cambridge office.

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.

Responsibilities

• Advance the science: Design and run experiments, define and validate metrics, and develop ML pipelines and models in areas like reinforcement learning, reasoning and Chain-of-Thought (CoT) optimization, and LLMs—all while upholding best practices in Responsible AI and Privacy-Preserving ML.
• Drive product innovation: Partner with Engineering, PM, and Design to translate product vision and industry trends into scalable, reliable, and agile architecture.
• Collaborate across Microsoft: Work closely with Microsoft Research, Azure, AI platform teams, and product groups to bring cutting-edge AI into real-world applications.
• Champion customer impact: Engage with customers and internal teams to deeply understand pain points and drive improvements that matter.
• Lead and mentor: Provide technical leadership to junior scientists and engineers, and scale your learnings across the broader product group.
• Define success: Establish and evolve success metrics that reflect platform and product growth.
• Stay ahead: Keep up with the latest research and foster a thriving applied science culture. Publishing is encouraged, though not required.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• A Doctorate Degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or a related field.
• Excellent problem solving and data analysis skills, with expertise in developing or applying predictive analytics, statistical modelling, data mining, or machine learning algorithms, especially at scale.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to simplify and explain complex ideas.
• Fluency in English.

Preferred Qualifications

• A publication record in top AI venues.
• Experience in the application of Language Models and Transformers.

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.