Principal Data Scientist

The Microsoft Teams Data Science team's charter is to foster a data-driven culture to encourage and enable the entire organization to make more informed decisions through data. Our data and analytics team works closely with engineering, marketing, finance, and business leaders to identify opportunities for improving the customer experience and accelerate our business's growth in support of this mission. This is a unique opportunity to bring your knowledge of enterprise software offerings, as well as your understanding of data science methods and best practices, to help Microsoft deliver the best experience possible for our customers and partners.  
 
We are a modern product and services organization, one of the largest business & consumer services on the planet, with over 300 million monthly active users. Data scientists on this team will be part of the broader data science team, and specific product teams focused on tangible and immediate business impact.  

We have a tremendous responsibility to our customers to help transform their organizations on how they facilitate collaboration within Teams. We use data to organize our backlogs. We empower our industry-leading design and user research teams to own the user experience of our product. We take a direct role in framing our business value directly to our customers and vibrant community of fans.   

The Principal Data Scientist will be based in Redmond, collaborating with a global product team to shape the future of the Teams developer ecosystem. They will lead data science for the Teams Platform, driving insights and experimentation across key investment areas, including AI-powered agents and app development. They will play a critical role in advancing the intelligence layer of the Team's platform, leveraging data to enhance developer experiences and unlock new AI-driven collaboration capabilities. 

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.

This is a hybrid role that allows for 50% work from home, 50% work from the Redmond campus. There is no relocation provided for this role. 

Required Qualifications: 

• Doctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 5+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)
  • OR Master's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 7+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years data science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years customer-facing, project-delivery experience, professional services, and/or consulting experience.
• 5+ years experience in SQL, R, Python, or related tools for large-scale analysis.     
• Experience presenting metrics and analysis to executives. 
   

Preferred Qualifications: 

• 3+ years leading and growing a team of data scientists.  
• 7+ years leveraging passion for and understanding the need to deliver the right business impact by working with stakeholders to turn business problems into data analysis questions and unearthing deep insights from data.      
• Experience as a data scientist for an online service, app, or Web site with millions of users. Experience working on an online collaboration, video conference, or messaging product is a plus.  
• Have a track record of innovative thinking and problem-solving skills using Big Data.    
• Have the ability to deliver on ambiguous projects with incomplete data.    
• 7+ years leveraging the practical uses of statistics (i.e. experimentation, statistical modeling).    
• Professional experience with large-scale computing systems like Hadoop, MapReduce, and/or similar systems.      
• Ability to convince others of their ideas and communicate complex analysis & insights to a non-technical audience.    

Data Science IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 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

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until March 25, 2025.

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.

• Work with other teams across Microsoft to develop key metrics to achieve business outcomes.    
• Work cross functionally to translate business problems into ones that can be solved and informed by data.    
• Communicate vision and strategy, enabling global teams to operate independently to deliver success. 
• Have curiosity and apply analytical skills to dive deep into data to find key insights that impact the business.    
• Develop models of usage, user behavior & business behavior to make recommendations and influence the product road map.     
• Be a champion of AB testing. Design, execute and analyze experiments to prove product change attribution.     
• Utilize tools like SQL, R, Python to execute analyses.   
• Grow and develop top talent - build and cultivate a highly functioning team of data scientists grounded in the objective truth of the measured customer experience. 
• Develop and manage relationships with product and business leaders across the organization to understand objectives and identify opportunities. Collaborate closely with other Microsoft Data Science and Data Engineering teams to deliver data-informed solutions to address the business's most essential needs.