Job Number
1970324837085083-en-2
Overview
We are seeking Data Research Engineers to join our Multimodal team, where we are building the next generation of foundation models across vision, language, audio, and beyond. If you are passionate about exploring, designing, and building high-quality datasets to drive frontier AI models, this role is for you.
At Microsoft AI, data is at the heart of innovation—and in this role, you will collaborate closely with scientists, engineers, and annotators to curate, analyze, and evaluate diverse multimodal data sources critical to model development. You’ll lead efforts in developing novel data collection strategies, improving dataset quality, understanding data-driven model behaviors, and aligning datasets with ethical and societal values.
This is a cross-disciplinary, high-impact role ideal for engineers who want to push the boundaries of what AI can learn from data, especially in multimodal contexts.
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.
Starting January 26, 2026, MAI employees are expected to work from a designated Microsoft office at least four days a week if they live within 50 miles (U.S.) or 25 miles (non-U.S., country-specific) of that location. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.
Responsibilities
- Create high-quality datasets for training and evaluation; run experiments on new datasets (data ablations) to assess their impact and determine the most effective data
- Develop and maintain scalable data pipelines for multimodal ingestion, preprocessing, filtering, and annotation
- Analyze real-world multimodal datasets to assess quality, diversity, relevance, and identify areas for improvement
- Build lightweight tools and workflows for dataset auditing, visualization, and versioning
- Collaborate with Safety, Ethics, and Governance teams to ensure datasets meet standards for quality, privacy, and responsible AI practices
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s Degree in AI, Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Physics, Engineering, or a related technical field AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Python and common data libraries (Pandas, NumPy, etc.)
- OR equivalent experience
- 2+ years of experience in data analysis or data engineering
- Proficiency in statistics and exploratory data analysis methods
- Ability to communicate technical findings effectively to research and product teams
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’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 and common data libraries (Pandas, NumPy, etc.)
- OR Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 12+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, Python and common data libraries (Pandas, NumPy, etc.)
- OR equivalent experience.
- Familiarity with data processing frameworks such as Spark, Ray, Apache Beam
- Experience working with large-scale, real-world datasets that are unstructured or semi-structured
Software Engineering IC4 – The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 – $234,700 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 $158,400 – $258,000 per year.
Software Engineering 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
Microsoft will accept applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.
