Research Engineer II

The Power Apps team at Microsoft is dedicated to empowering every person and every organization on the planet to build delightful apps that solve business problems. Our mission is to democratize App development with Copilot First experiences putting AI Solutions, powerful Azure technologies in the hands of citizen developers, enabling them to create solutions that are low code without the need for subscriptions and hosting. PowerApps is part of Power Platform which also includes Power Automate, Copilot Studio Agents and Power Virtual Agents, which work together to help users analyze data, automate processes, and build custom applications tailored to business needs.

We are looking for Research Engineer II to join our team! In the Power Apps Studio team, we are creating a new generation of low-code/no-code app development in the AI Era. Our goal is to make app building easy, fun and collaborative exercises that delight app makers with AI assisting users in every step in their journey. The Studio framework empowers developers define their requirements, data model, build User Interface, define logic, tests, deploy and monitor the app in production. We are researching and exploring solutions to leverage AI at every step of the app development process. We are a highly collaborative group, and everyone's ideas and contributions count. As an Research Engineer on the team, you will be responsible for conducting applied research that solves real world problems with building apps and solutions.

Successful candidates will collaborate with cross-functional teams to influence product design and technical architecture, maintain end to end lifecycle of AI/ML solutions and operate Copilot features in production. We operate in an agile, data-driven and fast-paced environment, where engineers and scientists are empowered to innovate and take ideas from concept to scale. This is an exciting time to join Power Apps where we are rebuilding the platform with Copilot first experiences. We aim to build the state-of-the-art solutions for building apps and simplifying development processes. This is a great opportunity to work on challenging problems in the App Development space which will revolutionize the industry.

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.

The team consists of highly motivated, innovative, customer-focused applied scientists and engineers partnering regularly with Product Managers and Designers. Our team works in an agile start-up like environment where we expect each team member to think out of the box to contribute and collaborate towards the mission of the team.

As part of this team, you would get exciting opportunities to work on novel experiences & cutting edge technologies across a variety of platforms to build the next generation application development experiences.

• Conduct applied research to develop innovative AI and machine learning models that address real-world challenges.
• Develop end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning models, from prototyping and implementation to evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Create and adapt novel training and fine-tuning algorithms for language models.
• Bring research projects to successful completion yielding new algorithms, prototypes, theories, tools, methods, analyses, insights, or collections of data which solve one or more open research problems.
• Document and share best practices across the organization.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in AI and machine learning, and apply new techniques to solve complex problems.
• Embody our Culture and Values

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or Machine Learning or related technical field AND 2+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 1+ years experience working with LLM (Large Language Model) and Prompt Engineering.

Other 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:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working on successful applied research projects in industry environments .
• Experience programming with Python, Typescript, C# (any) is preferred.
• An applicant with the following skills or relevant experience would be a plus:
  • Applications of Foundation Models, Domain Adaptation of Foundation Models (e.g. fine-tuning LLMs/SLMs
  • Vision, Audio, and Multimodal Foundation Models - Agentic Systems
  • Prompt Tuning
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Human-AI Interaction

#BICJOBS

Research Sciences IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $100,600 - $199,000 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 $131,400 - $215,400 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

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.