Overview
Microsoft’s Discovery and Quantum (MDQ) division develops and delivers advanced artificial intelligence (AI), cloud-enabled capabilities, and strategic technologies to help solve the world’s major challenges. From accelerating scientific discovery with advanced AI tools, to pioneering breakthroughs in quantum computing, to advancing robotics and AI capabilities that drive real-world impact, joining MDQ means building the future, partnering with fast-moving innovators, and operating in a high-impact, mission-driven environment.
At Microsoft Robotics within MDQ, we build and deploy technologies that enable people, robots, and AI agents to collaborate and achieve more.
We are building Microsoft’s platform for physical intelligence—an integrated robotics software and AI platform that brings together humans, robots, and agents through robotics AI models, innovative teaming solutions and experiences, physically grounded agentic AI workflows, trustworthy test and evaluation, and real-world customer-focused validation. Built on Microsoft’s core platforms and delivered through and with a global ecosystem of partners and customers, this platform accelerates AI for the physical world and helps robotics solutions move from experimentation to reliable, scaled deployment.
We are hiring a **Member of Technical Staff, Microsoft Robotics (Robotics Data) **at the Senior level, to lead data analysis, data curation, and data visualization efforts that accelerate the development, evaluation, and continuous improvement of robotics AI models across Microsoft’s robotics platform. This role owns the data lifecycle and data architecture for robot learning, from defining data collection strategies and quality standards through building analysis pipelines and visualization tools that surface actionable insights about model performance, data coverage gaps, and training efficiency. The data scientist will work at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and data engineering to assess, acquire, and activate diverse physical world data to train world-class physical AI models.
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.
#MicrosoftRobotics #MDQ
Responsibilities
- Define and implement data collection strategies for robot learning, including specifying demonstration coverage requirements, environmental diversity targets, task distribution plans, and quality acceptance criteria for teleoperation, egocentric, and autonomous data collection campaigns.
- Build and maintain data curation pipelines that ingest, clean, validate, label, and version robotics datasets (manipulation demonstrations, navigation trajectories, sensor logs, simulation rollouts), ensuring data integrity and provenance tracking.
- Develop data analysis frameworks that quantify dataset characteristics (coverage, diversity, balance, quality scores), identify data gaps and biases, and provide recommendations for targeted data collection to improve model performance.
- Create interactive data visualization tools and dashboards (using tools such as Power BI, Plotly, or custom web applications) that enable researchers, engineers, and leadership to explore dataset properties, model training metrics, evaluation results, and fleet operational telemetry.
- Collaborate with ML researchers and learning engineers to design and execute experiments that measure the impact of data quantity, quality, and diversity on model performance, producing statistical analyses that guide data investment decisions.
- Formulate and maintain a roadmap of data science project activity that leads to measurable improvement in model performance metrics, data pipeline efficiency, and data quality over time.
- Develop and apply statistical techniques (hypothesis testing, causal inference, regression analysis, clustering) to analyze robot performance data, identify failure modes, and uncover patterns that inform model architecture and training strategy decisions.
- Write efficient, readable, extensible code in Python (including Pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, matplotlib) for data processing, analysis, and visualization, building professional-grade documentation for knowledge transfer.
- Adhere and contribute to ethics and privacy policies related to collecting and preparing robotics data, providing guidance on responsible data practices including bias detection, consent, and data governance.
- Present results and findings to senior stakeholders, using compelling visualizations and storytelling to influence data investment priorities and model development strategy.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- 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)
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:
- 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)
- Experience with robotics data pipelines, including teleoperation demonstration data, sensor logs, simulation rollouts, or autonomous driving datasets.
- Proficiency in data visualization tools and frameworks (Power BI, Plotly, D3.js, Streamlit, Grafana, or equivalent) for building interactive operational and analytical dashboards.
- Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks (Apache Spark, Databricks, Azure Data Factory, or equivalent) for handling multimodal robotics datasets.
- Familiarity with machine learning model evaluation methodologies, including benchmark design, ablation studies, and statistical significance testing for robotics applications.
- Understanding of data governance, data versioning (DVC, MLflow, or equivalent), and data quality assurance practices for ML training datasets.
- Experience with the Microsoft Azure data and AI toolset (Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, Azure Cognitive Services) or equivalent cloud data platforms.
Data Science IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800.00 - $234,700.00 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 $160,200.00 - $261,000.00 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
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.**