Senior Data Scientist

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
Senior
Data Scientist
who thrive 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 need to leverage data to inform decision making, optimize outcomes and produce innovative solutions and are seeking a skilled data scientist. We can offer an agile development environment with diverse skills in algorithms and data structures, big data, data science, machine learning and search technology to mention a few. The position is full-time and based in our Norway offices. We are looking for engineers 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

• Apply data analysis, AI, and modelling techniques to understand user behaviour, identify opportunities, and inform product improvements.
• Write robust, reusable, and extensible code to support analysis, modelling, and operationalization at scale.
• Use AI-powered tools in your daily work to accelerate analysis, experimentation, and solution development.
• Develop and maintain metrics and evaluation frameworks to assess the quality, performance, and impact of services.
• Drive data-driven decision making by presenting clear, actionable insights to senior leaders and stakeholders.
• Collaborate in a cross-functional environment with local and remote partners to deliver scalable, elegant, and impactful solutions.
• Acquire, prepare, and validate datasets for analysis and modelling, while contributing to best practices in data collection and data quality.
• Evaluate and improve existing products to ensure intelligent services evolve to meet user needs.
• Design, evaluate, and optimize prompts and fine-tuning strategies for large language models.

Qualifications
Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 1+ year(s) 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 3+ 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 5+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results)

• OR equivalent experience.

• 2+ years customer-facing, project-delivery experience, professional services, and/or consulting experience.

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:

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications

• Doctorate in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Econometrics, Economics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or related field AND 3+ 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 5+ 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 7+ years data-science experience (e.g., managing structured and unstructured data, applying statistical techniques and reporting results) OR equivalent experience.

• Software engineering experience covering software engineering best practices (code quality, repo hygiene, code reviews, unit testing, design documentation, continuous integration, deployment).

• Track record of defining, delivering, and optimizing explorative data science and machine learning projects that address real-world problems.
• Knowledge of distributed big-data computing systems (e.g. Spark, Hadoop, Hive, Azure ML).
• Experience in experimentation frameworks and understanding how to measure end user impacting metrics.
• Experience with ML tools to build models and analyze data (e.g. Python, R, scikit-learn, TF, PyTorch, ML.NET).
• Experience with large language models (LLMs), including prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and evaluation for real-world applications

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.