• Define north-star metrics and guardrails; build measurement plans, offline scorecards, and online A/B tests; interpret results and drive clear ship/iterate decisions.
• Build, train, and adapt LLM/SLM solutions for sports scenarios (prompting, supervised fine-tuning, distillation, and domain adaptation), using disciplined evaluation and error analysis to improve quality, latency, and cost.
• Improve relevance and user satisfaction via applied NLP/IR: query intent, disambiguation, ranking, summarization, multilingual support, and robust entity/event understanding for sports.
• Partner with engineering and PM to translate prototypes into shippable systems (data/feature pipelines, training workflows, inference services, monitoring), and to iterate quickly based on experiment outcomes.
• Own end-to-end DS/ML delivery: data strategy (instrumentation, labeling), modeling approach, evaluation, rollout/holdbacks, and long-term iteration plans.
• Mentor and unblock other data scientists and engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, and best practices, while remaining hands-on on critical paths.
• Establish ongoing health signals: KPI dashboards, model/data monitoring, regression gates, and incident playbooks to keep quality high during peak sports moments.
• Ensure Responsible AI and compliance (privacy, security, policy, and regional requirements): evaluate for safety issues (hallucinations, bias, sensitive content), implement mitigations, and document decisions.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
  • OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
  • OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 6+ years of industry experience delivering production ML/DS solutions; 5+ years building deep learning/NLP/IR systems (sports domain experience is a plus).
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence as a senior IC: independently define strategy, drive execution across teams, and deliver measurable impact.
• Strong foundations in statistics and applied experimentation (metric design, A/B testing, guardrails, causal thinking), and ML evaluation (error analysis and model assessment).
• Experience integrating models into production services: data pipelines, feature stores, CI/CD for ML, monitoring, and on-call/operational practices.
• Experience with modern generative AI stacks: LLM/SLM fine-tuning and/or adaptation, prompt evaluation, distillation, RAG, and systematic quality/safety evaluation.
• Proven experience building, deploying, and improving large-scale ML systems in customer-facing products, including data quality, performance, reliability, and cost optimization.
• Proficiency in Python (and one of C++/C#/Java preferred) and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow); experience with distributed training/inference is a plus.
• Publications, patents, or open-source contributions in ML/NLP/IR are a plus (not required).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 9+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
  • OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research).
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience creating publications (e.g., patents, libraries, peer-reviewed academic papers).
• 2+ years experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research/industry community as an invited speaker.
• 5+ years experience conducting research as part of a research program (in academic or industry settings).
• 3+ years experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team.
• 3+ years experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping.

#MicrosoftAI

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.