below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
52%
of similar roles. Most pay
$190,405–$254,037
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$222k
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
687 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 646 roles with salary data.
The Principal Applied Scientist joins the CogAgents Research team to lead the design, evaluation, and productization of autonomous red teaming agents. This role involves building intelligent systems that probe, stress-test, and uncover vulnerabilities in digital infrastructure at scale. You will develop agentic workflows using coding agents, RAG, and domain knowledge repositories while designing reusable data processing frameworks and canonical data models. Key responsibilities include leading architectural decisions for cloud data platforms, establishing quality guardrails, and streamlining development through automated pipelines for failure triage and root-cause analysis. The position requires expertise in deep learning, large language models, and graph-based models. Candidates should possess proficiency in Python, Scala, C#, Java, Apache Spark, Delta Lake, SQL, and cloud-native platforms like Microsoft Fabric and Azure Machine Learning.
What does a Applied Scientist earn?
Median $208800 from 59 postings across 10 companies.
Design and build autonomous red-team agents to discover and exploit vulnerabilities in digital infrastructure at scale.
Develop agentic workflows using coding agents, RAG, and domain knowledge repositories to improve red-team systems.
Design reusable data processing frameworks, canonical data models, and data contracts for evolving business requirements.
Lead architectural decisions for cloud data platforms, distributed compute engines, and analytical serving systems.
Streamline agent development through automated pipelines for code reviews, failure triage, and root-cause analysis.
Establish governance and quality guardrails including automated testing, correctness validation, and production-readiness checks.
What we're looking for
Obtain a Doctorate with 3+ years of data science experience, a Master's with 5+ years, or a Bachelor's with 7+ years of experience.
Possess equivalent experience to the specified degree and years of data science experience.
Ability to meet Microsoft Cloud background check requirements.
10+ years of technical engineering experience coding in languages such as Scala, Python, C#, or Java (preferred).
3+ years of experience in deep learning and development of advanced AI systems and agents (preferred).
Practical experience applying AI coding assistants, LLMs, and agentic workflows to software development and engineering automation (preferred).
Experience in RAG, embeddings, semantic search, tool calling, and agent orchestration with security and reliability controls (preferred).
Expertise in architecting and operating production-grade, cloud-native data platforms using Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, or Azure Machine Learning (preferred).
Python
PyTorch
scikit-learn
SQL
Azure Data Lake
Spark
Kusto
Hive
C#
C++
R
Agentic Systems
Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Time-series Forecasting
Anomaly Detection
Mathematical Optimization
Operations Research
AIOps
Generative AI
Machine Learning
Data Science
RAG
Multi-agent Architectures
Foundation Models
Predictive Analytics
Responsible AI
Production Systems
Observability
Statistics