Senior Researcher, Efficient AI

Microsoft

Quick summary

Work type
On-site
Location
Redmond, WA
Salary
$119,800–$234,700 / yr
Posted
17 days ago
Closes
Dec 8, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Below market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $210k
This role $177k
$104k most similar roles pay here $271k

This role pays less than 72% of similar roles. Most pay $174,400–$246,150 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $177k versus about $210k 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 622 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $119,800–$234,700 across 571 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Microsoft

At a glance

TL;DR · Senior Researcher, Efficient AI

As a Senior Applied Research Engineer on Microsoft's generative AI team, you will drive innovation across the entire AI stack, from large-scale serving systems to hardware-level optimizations. Your day-to-day responsibilities include formulating and evaluating new algorithmic approaches for efficient AI serving, designing endpoint configurations, and collaborating with various teams to align algorithms with hardware capabilities. You will build experimental prototypes, conduct large-scale measurements, and produce technical documentation to validate research ideas before deploying them in production. The role requires expertise in machine learning frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow, proficiency in GPU programming using CUDA or similar tools, and strong skills in C++ and Python for high-performance systems. This position emphasizes real-world impact through end-to-end ownership of AI efficiency challenges within one of the world's largest collaboration platforms.

What you'll do

  • Develop and evaluate new algorithmic approaches for AI serving to optimize latency and throughput.
  • Design and experimentally validate endpoint configuration policies, including batching and routing strategies.
  • Conduct hardware-aware optimization by aligning serving algorithms with accelerator capabilities and attention innovations.
  • Build experimental prototypes and large-scale measurements to drive research ideas toward production readiness.
  • Publish research findings and contribute to open-source systems for AI inference serving.

What we're looking for

  • Doctorate or equivalent experience in a relevant field.
  • 3+ years of experience designing and optimizing efficient inference systems.
  • Expertise in machine learning frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, and serving frameworks such as vLLM, Triton Inference Server.
  • Proficiency in GPU programming with CUDA, ROCm, and other GPU optimization tools.
  • Strong knowledge of algorithmic optimization, parallel computing, and request orchestration under strict SLO constraints.
  • Research impact through publications and patents, along with hands-on experience delivering research ideas to production.

More like this

Similar roles

Principal Software Engineer, Performance

Microsoft

Mountain View, CA 18 days ago $142,800$274,800
Python C++ CUDA ROCm PyTorch TensorFlow ONNX_Runtime NVIDIA_GPUs AMD_GPUs Maia_silicon Performance_Benchmarking GPU_Profiling_Tools CI/CD Azure Linux

Senior Software Engineer, Performance

Microsoft

Mountain View, CA 19 days ago $119,800$234,700
Python C++ CUDA ROCm PyTorch TensorFlow ONNX_Runtime Azure Nvidia_GPUs AMD_GPUs GPU_Profiling_Tools CI/CD Linux Windows Docker Kubernetes

AI Researcher

Cisco

Remote 10 days ago $160,100$239,000
Python PyTorch Kubernetes MLOps AWS GCP Azure vLLM NVIDIA Triton TorchServe Docker CI/CD PostgreSQL NeurIPS ICML ICLR ACL
Remote

AI Researcher

Cisco

Remote (San Francisco, CA) 10 days ago $181,000$270,300
Python PyTorch Kubernetes MLOps AWS GCP Azure vLLM NVIDIA Triton TorchServe Docker CI/CD PostgreSQL NeurIPS ICML ICLR ACL
Remote

Senior AI Scientist

Intuit

Mountain View, CA 72 days ago $173,500$234,500
Python scikit-learn R SQL Hive SparkSQL Linux data mining clustering classification regression decision trees neural nets support vector machines anomaly detection recommender systems sequential pattern discovery text mining A/B testing statistical analysis