New

Principal Applied Scientist

Microsoft

$139,900.00 - $274,800.00 / yr

United States, Washington, Redmond

Feb 16, 2026

Overview

The Scheduling service team is looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to provide technical leadership for the Scheduling Service, defining algorithmic strategy and driving delivery of a production-grade optimization platform.

Microsoft products support a variety of customer scheduling needs, including meetings, project timelines, supply chain optimization, and frontline worker routing. The Scheduling Service team has been given ambitious goals of being the scheduling service of choice across all Microsoft products and an industry leader in this space. While the team has a broad agenda across multiple domains, today, our primary focus is on optimizing the scheduling and routing of Field Service workers to ensure efficient operations and improved customer satisfaction.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

We are looking for a Principal Applied Scientist who is passionate about our vision to design and build innovative scheduling algorithms within our suite of scheduling solutions to meet this bold initiative.The candidate should have proven optimization experience with scheduling algorithms (both exact and heuristic) and will be expected to keep abreast of state-of-the-art approaches (including deep learning models) to address vehicle routing problems. You will be a member of the product team, set technical direction for scheduling/routing, define metrics and evaluation north-star, lead architecture decisions and drive cross-team execution, including collaborations with research organizations to bridge the gap between research and practice.

Qualifications

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.

Other Requirements: 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.

Preferred Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 8+ 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 6-12+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
- OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 1+ year(s) related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
- OR equivalent experience.
8+ years (or equivalent) in applied optimization/ML in production.
Experience in vehicle routing problems or scheduling optimization (algorithms).
Proven technical leadership (leading major initiatives, leading major initiatives).
Experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#.
Background in Multi-agent Planning and Scheduling and/or Operations Research.
Experience running your algorithms in a production environment and responding to customer inquiries.
Led development of optimization systems combining OR + ML
Experience in Genetic / heuristic scheduling algorithms, large neighborhood search and/or other optimization at scale.
Proven experience in solving vehicle routing problems.
Proven ability to lead problem framing and knowledge elicitation with customers and internal stakeholders, aligning on tradeoffs (cost/quality/latency/robustness) and driving measurable outcomes through production optimization systems.

#BICJOBS

Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $139,900 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

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.