Senior Research Software Engineer - Azure Office of the CTO

Microsoft is a leading technology company seeking a Senior Research Software Engineer for its Azure Office of the CTO. The role involves contributing to AI and security research initiatives, maintaining code for research and prototyping scenarios, and collaborating across teams to drive impactful outcomes.

Responsibilities:

• Design and execute AI and security research initiatives from hypothesis development through experimentation, validation, and analysis, driving outcomes that contribute to academic publication and/or product integration
• Develop and evaluate model improvement strategies through systematic experimentation and ablation, ensuring both scientific rigor and practical applicability
• Analyze model behavior, robustness, and safety characteristics to inform technical direction, research contributions, and real-world deployment decisions
• Maintain and optimize GPU research infrastructure, ensuring cluster reliability, performance efficiency, and adherence to security best practices to support experimentation
• Synthesize emerging technical trends into actionable insights and collaborate across research and engineering teams to translate validated findings into high-impact outcomes
• Conduct market, technical, and architectural research to evaluate emerging technologies
• Keep up with cloud trends and share insights with the CTO and executive office
• Maintain confidentiality on internal projects and initiatives not yet public

Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Python OR equivalent experience
• 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
• Master's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 6+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Python
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Python
• OR equivalent experience
• Understanding of AI and ML algorithms, models, and systems
• Experience with deep learning training and inference tools, frameworks, and methods
• Experience publishing academic papers