Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft

Confirmed live 2 days ago High trust

Hybrid

Quick summary

Work type: Hybrid
Location: —
Salary: $142,800–$274,800 / yr
Posted: 36 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live 2 days ago
Closes: Feb 1, 2027

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Salary context

Competitive pay

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $216k

This role $209k

$127k most similar roles pay here $291k

This role pays more than 54% of similar roles. Most pay $185,307–$247,625 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $209k versus about $216k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing

Microsoft currently has 598 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 586 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Applied Scientist

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As a Principal Applied Scientist on the Microsoft Ads Fraud Detection team, you will lead complex initiatives to identify and neutralize fraudulent web traffic within a large advertising ecosystem. You will design new anomaly detection approaches, build cross-signal correlation frameworks, and develop next-generation machine learning models and low-latency pipelines to stop attacks before they scale. Your daily work involves translating scientific insights into production-ready solutions while ensuring systems remain performant and cost-efficient. To succeed, you must leverage expertise in statistical machine learning, anomaly detection, large language models, deep learning, and causal inference. You will also provide technical leadership by mentoring other scientists and collaborating across engineering, security, and privacy teams. The role focuses on solving the critical problem of protecting advertiser ROI and publisher integrity against increasingly sophisticated threats through robust, scalable, and high-precision detection systems.

What does a Applied Scientist earn?

Median $208800 from 47 postings across 10 companies.

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Skills

Machine Learning Anomaly Detection Large Language Models Deep Learning Causal Inference Statistical Machine Learning Data Mining System Design Low-latency Pipelines Experimentation Frameworks Model Operationalization

What you'll do

Design new anomaly detection approaches to identify emerging fraud attacks early.
Build robust cross-signal correlation frameworks to define and expand fraud perimeters.
Develop next-generation machine learning models and low-latency pipelines to stop attacks at scale.
Architect scalable, cost-efficient end-to-end systems that meet production reliability requirements.
Translate scientific insights into production impact through rigorous experimentation and continuous optimization.
Apply advanced ML techniques including LLMs and anomaly detection with clear evaluation frameworks.
Mentor other scientists and provide technical leadership to improve scientific rigor and execution quality.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
Master's degree and 4+ years of experience in statistics, predictive analytics, or research.
Doctorate and 3+ years of experience in statistics, predictive analytics, or research.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check.
Experience designing and deploying scalable machine learning systems and low-latency pipelines at web scale.
Expertise in anomaly detection, fraud modeling, deep learning, large-scale data mining, or causal inference.
Proven experience mentoring scientists and providing technical leadership in complex, ambiguous problem spaces.
Strong software engineering skills including model operationalization and experimentation frameworks.

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