Principal Data Scientist – Deepfake Detection

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end-to-end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

We are seeking a Principal Data Scientist with expertise in audio/video (A/V) analysis, ML systems, and threat detection to help Microsoft Defender for Office protect the hundreds of millions of enterprise customers that rely on Microsoft collaboration platforms every day for meetings, chat, email, and more. In this role you will be a keystone in the continuous improvement of our deepfake detection strategy.

You’ll immerse yourself in the deepfake threat problem space and drive solutions to improve detection efficacy. As part of a team of security researchers and data scientists supporting a large customer base, you’ll need to be able to ideate, adapt, and deliver quick wins with current capabilities while devising longer term durable improvements. Essential to success will be your ability to establish effective collaboration across organizational boundaries. You can expect to be ‘hands on’ in prototyping, testing and implementing solutions to achieve our detection effectiveness goals. You’ll also help support our broader strategy for detecting social engineering techniques tangential to deepfakes.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

As a Principal Data Scientist focused on protecting enterprise Microsoft customers from deepfakes and other social engineering threat vectors through Microsoft Defender, you will be responsible for:

Collaborating with a diverse set of partner teams to protect enterprise Microsoft customers from deepfakes and other social engineering threat vectors
Driving research and experimentation for synthetic A/V and manipulated media detection inside Teams, particularly developing evaluation and benchmarking protocols and measurements, running evaluations on new detection signals from external and internal sources, contributing to integration roadmaps, and identifying and driving effectiveness improvements
Conducting experiments and analyzing new methods for generative A/V detection while maintaining an in-depth understanding of evolving generative technologies, including attacker tools and techniques
Developing and supporting production ML models and heuristics to detect deepfakes and other social engineering attacks
Availability and willingness to cover a periodic on-call rotation or engage in incident response as needed

Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
OR Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 4+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 3+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR equivalent experience
3+ years experience in applied security research or ML for audio/video analysis, biometrics, signal processing, media forensics or a closely related field; ideally shipping detections or classifiers to production at scale
3+ years’ experience with Python and ML frameworks and algorithms, with experience designing offline evaluations and online experiments that balance precision/recall, latency, and customer 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 background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications

Master's Degree in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 9+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research)
OR Doctorate in Statistics, Econometrics, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years related experience (e.g., statistics, predictive analytics, research) OR equivalent experience.
5+ years experience creating publications (e.g., patents, libraries, peer-reviewed academic papers)
2+ years experience presenting at conferences or other events in the outside research/industry community as an invited speaker
5+ years experience conducting research as part of a research program (in academic or industry settings)
3+ years experience developing and deploying live production systems, as part of a product team
3+ years experience developing and deploying products or systems at multiple points in the product cycle from ideation to shipping
Experience in synthetic media detection and anti-spoofing (audio and/or video), including adversarial ML, domain shift, and real time performance constraints
Experience with big data platforms such as Azure Analytics Services, Spark, or comparable technology. Background with product security, trust & safety or digital safety programs
Experience in collaboration threat models or threat research, including deepfake/social engineering scenarios in meetings, email, and chats or related technology
Willing to lead and influence change without hierarchical authority, partner effectively with a diverse set of stakeholders, and drive consensus
Applied Sciences 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 for the role until September 28, 2025

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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.
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