Principal Data Scientist

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

The Microsoft Identity security team is dedicated to safeguarding our users from account compromise and fraudulent activities. At the heart of this mission is our data science team, which plays a crucial role in developing and enhancing machine learning-based detection methods to identify and malicious actors, ensuring the protection of our customers. We are currently seeking an experienced Principal Data Scientist to contribute to our efforts in building advanced analytics and automation capabilities. In this role, you will collaborate with data scientists and security researchers to develop detection mechanisms, establish evaluation methodologies for monitoring the performance of our machine learning systems, and enhance grading capabilities. Your responsibilities will extend to constructing detections based on expertise findings and developing algorithms to automate the manual grading and investigation processes. Do you love big data and the challenges it entails? Do you like the idea of applying your technical skills to protect millions of Microsoft customers from malicious actors? Do you want be part of a team of smart, talented and mission driven people? Then this job is for you!

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.

Required/Minimum 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.
• Experience as tech lead, driving large-scale complex projects end to end 

Other Requirements:

• Background Check: 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.
• Citizenship Verification: This position requires verification of citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local United States government agency customers and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate’s citizenship will be verified with a valid passport.

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.

• Advanced knowledge about ML, especially binary classification and anomaly detection 

• Previous experience as a data scientist in any of the following: identity systems, security, threat intelligence, fraud, or abuse. 

• Data manipulation skills including SQL and Python 

• Programming experience (C#, C++, Java, Python) 

• Data visualization skills including PowerBI and Tableau 

• Familiarity with using a modern big data platform such as Hive/Spark/Cosmos/Kusto 

• Confident communicator with the ability to interact at all levels. 

Applied Sciences IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $133,600 - $256,800 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 $173,200 - $282,200 per year. 

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: US corporate pay information | Microsoft Careers 

Microsoft will accept applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

#MSFTSecurity, #IdentityJobs

• Set up and track metrics to assess the quality of our detections and manual grading process, build algorithms and find automation opportunities to enhance human grading process.
• Create and maintain machine learning based detections to detect security attacks against Microsoft Identity services.
• Analyze new data sources and research new patterns and techniques that can be used in an automated detection.
• Leverage data gathered by the different teams and services to build new detection algorithms.
• Help the team achieve its mission by participating in incident resolution and investigations on identity attacks.
• Embody our Culture and Values