Principal Data Scientist

Job description

**Overview** Are you passionate about using data to shape exceptional user experiences? Do you want your work to directly impact the lives of billions of people around the world? Microsoft Development Center Norway (MDCN) is expanding, and we’re looking for a talented **Data Scientist** who thrives on solving complex problems and delivering insights that drive innovation. Who we are Microsoft Development Center Norway (MDCN) is a key engineering hub within Microsoft’s Experiences & Devices division, with offices in Oslo, Trondheim, and Tromsø. Our teams are at the forefront of building and scaling the next generation of Copilot and Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities across Microsoft 365 - powering products like M365 Copilot, Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype, and Microsoft Teams. We work on some of the world’s most advanced distributed systems, operating across hundreds of data centres globally. Our solutions are used by Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, non-profits, and hundreds of millions of users every day. To deliver on our mission to empower people and organizations to achieve more, we leverage data to inform decision-making, optimize outcomes, and produce innovative solutions. We offer an agile development environment with diverse expertise in algorithms and data structures, big data, data science, machine learning, and search technology. The position is full-time and based in our Norway offices. We are looking for people who thrive in collaborative environments and are excited to push the boundaries of what AI can do for millions of users worldwide. If you are ready to work on cutting-edge technology with real impact, MDCN is the place 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. **Responsibilities** As a Principal Data Scientist, you will set the data science direction for some of the world’s largest and most advanced services, using data and AI to shape user experiences, improve service quality, and drive measurable impact at global scale. You will lead across team and organisational boundaries, partnering with engineering, product, and research leaders to define how intelligent services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot are measured, evaluated, and improved – while mentoring others and raising the bar for data science across the organisation. - Define and drive the data science strategy and technical roadmap for a product area, identifying the highest-impact opportunities and aligning partners across teams and organisations. - Lead the design and application of advanced analytical, AI, and modelling approaches to understand user behaviour at scale, and translate findings into product and platform direction. - Own the metrics and evaluation strategy for intelligent services, defining north-star and guardrail metrics, offline and online evaluation frameworks, and quality bars for LLM-powered experiences. - Set the technical direction for LLM evaluation, prompt optimisation, and fine-tuning strategies, including scalable evaluation methods (e.g., LLM-as-judge, human labelling, and their calibration). - Establish standards for robust, reusable, production-quality code, data pipelines, and experimentation practices, and drive their adoption across teams. - Pioneer the use of AI-powered tools and agentic workflows to accelerate analysis, experimentation, and solution development, and scale these practices across the organisation. - Influence senior leadership decisions by framing ambiguous problems, presenting clear, evidence-based recommendations, and articulating trade-offs to executives and stakeholders. - Lead data strategy for your area, including data acquisition, data quality, governance, privacy, and Responsible AI compliance. - Lead cross-functional, multi-team initiatives with local and remote partners, resolving ambiguity and driving alignment to deliver scalable, elegant, and impactful solutions. - Mentor and coach data scientists and engineers, contribute to hiring, and foster a culture of scientific rigour, collaboration, and inclusion. - Represent the team’s data science work across Microsoft and, where appropriate, externally through technical communities, publications, or conferences **Qualifications** **Required Qualifications:** - Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctorate degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, OR a related field AND demonstrated data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques, and reporting results); - Strong software engineering background covering best practices (code quality, repository hygiene, code reviews, unit testing, design documentation, continuous integration, and deployment), with experience setting engineering standards for data science teams. **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: **Preferred Qualifications:** - Customer-facing, project-delivery, professional-services, and/or consulting experience. - Proven track record of defining and leading data science and machine learning initiatives from ambiguous problem statements through to measurable production impact, spanning multiple teams or organizations. - Deep expertise with large language models (LLMs), including evaluation methodology, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and grounding/retrieval-augmented generation for real-world applications at scale. - Expertise in experimentation design (e.g., A/B testing, causal inference) and in defining metrics that capture end-user impact. - Extensive experience with distributed big-data computing systems (e.g., Spark, Hadoop, Hive, Azure ML). - Expert-level proficiency with ML tools to build models and analyses data (e.g., Python, R, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, ). - Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction without direct authority and to communicate complex findings to executive audiences. - Experience mentoring and growing senior data scientists. - Publications, patents, or recognized contributions to the data science or machine learning community. #CAP #M365 Data Science IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Norway is kr 864,000.00 - kr 1,423,000.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: 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.**](https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)