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Microsoft UK • Cambridge, United Kingdom

Senior Machine Learning Research Scientist

Employment type:  Full time

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top 3 scores:
83%

Location flexibility

81%

Hours flexibility

79%

Autonomy

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Job Description

Do you want to be at the forefront of innovating the latest hardware designs to propel Microsoft’s cloud growth? Are you seeking a unique career opportunity that combines both technical capabilities, cross team collaboration, with business insight and strategy?

Join our Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPARC) team within Microsoft’s Azure Hardware Systems & Infrastructure (AHSI) organization and be a part of the organization behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission.

Microsoft delivers more than 200 online services to more than one billion individuals worldwide and AHSI is the team behind our expanding cloud infrastructure. We deliver the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's cloud businesses including Microsoft Azure, Bing, MSN, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Teams and Xbox Live.

The SPARC organization manages Azure’s hardware roadmap from architecture concept through production for all of Microsoft’s current and future on-line services. This role is for a highly motivated Machine Learning Engineer with a strong background in neural networks and hardware implementation. You will be involved with both model development, data type analysis, ML/HW co-design.

Responsibilities

  • Driving model/hardware codesign
  • Developing and analysing novel LLM architectures
  • Inventing novel low-precision data/number formats for training/inference SOTA LLMs
  • Inventing novel efficient model architectures (e.g., sparse LLMs, attention architecture)
  • Collaborating with data scientists and ML researchers
  • Interfacing with HW architecture teams
  • Interfacing with SW framework teams

Qualifications

Master's Degree/PhD in Machine learning, Computer Architecture/Systems, High-Performance Computing or related areas.

3+ years of experience in ML systems/Model optimizations/Efficient model architecture

Track record of original research and delivering novel results in ML systems area

Hands on experience with frameworks such as PyTorch/TensorFlow/TensorRT

Deep knowledge of CNN/transformer architecture and optimization strategies – quantization, sparsity, NAS, sharding, KV Cache, Flash Attention

Strong programming skills in Python/C/C++

Experience in implementing low-level linear algebra/BLAS kernels and performance optimisations

Knowledge of GPU, TPU or similar NPU accelerator architecture

Outstanding communication skills

#SPARCjobs

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.

Company benefits

Wellbeing allowance
Health insurance
Dental coverage
Gym membership
Mental health platform access
Buy or sell annual leave
Shared parental leave
Charity donation scheme
Employee assistance programme
Employee discounts
Volunteer days
Fertility treatment leave
Open to compressed hours
Open to job sharing
Fertility benefits
Enhanced sick pay
Enhanced sick days
Compassionate leave
Travel insurance
20 days annual leave + bank holidays
Enhanced maternity leave
Enhanced paternity leave
Adoption leave
Childcare credits
Carer’s leave
Cycle to work scheme
Faith rooms
Annual bonus
Annual pay rises
Company car
Hackathons
Open to part-time employees
Pregnancy loss leave
Life insurance
Equity packages
Financial coaching
Relocation packages
Sabbaticals
Enhanced pension match/contribution

We asked employees of Microsoft UK what it's like to work there, and this is what they told us.

Location flexibility
83%
Employees are very happy with their working location freedom
Hours flexibility
81%
Employees are very happy with the flexibility in the hours they work
Benefits
67%
Employees are largely happy with the benefits their company offers
Work-life balance
63%
Employees feel that they can switch off quite easily from work
Role modelling
74%
Employees feel that most people work flexibly
Autonomy
79%
Employees feel that they can mostly manage how they get their own work done

Working at Microsoft UK

Company employees

Globally: 228,000

Gender diversity (male:female)

67:33

Currently Hiring Countries

United Kingdom

Office Locations

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