Member of Technical Staff, Microsoft Robotics (Spatial AI)

Full Time

|

Redmond, WA

|

Microsoft

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 testing and evaluation

  • Real-world customer validation

Built on Microsoft’s core platforms and delivered through 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 (Spatial AI) at the Data & Applied Science II level to design, develop, and test physical world models that enable robots to understand, predict, and reason about the 3D physical environments in which they operate.

This role focuses on building models that capture:

  • Spatial structure

  • Object relationships

  • Physics dynamics

  • Scene semantics

The engineer will work at the frontier of:

  • World modeling

  • Spatial AI

  • Foundation models for robotics

contributing to systems that predict how the physical world changes in response to robot actions and environmental dynamics.

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

World Modeling & Physical Intelligence

  • Design, develop, and evaluate physical world models that capture:

    • 3D spatial structure

    • Object geometry and pose

    • Physics dynamics

    • Material properties

    • Semantic scene understanding

  • Build and train world models such as:

    • Video prediction models

    • Neural physics simulators

    • 3D generative models

    • Scene graph representations

  • Develop systems that predict future states of physical environments conditioned on robot actions, enabling:

    • Model-based planning

    • Policy learning

    • Environment forecasting

Spatial AI & Perception

  • Develop spatial AI capabilities including:

    • 3D scene reconstruction

    • Object detection

    • Pose estimation

    • Spatial relationship reasoning

    • Occupancy prediction

    • Dense 3D feature representations

  • Support robot perception, navigation, and planning through advanced 3D understanding systems.

Evaluation & Benchmarking

  • Implement evaluation frameworks for world models and spatial AI systems, including:

    • Prediction accuracy metrics

    • Planning performance benchmarks

    • Generalization testing across environments

    • Object-category robustness evaluations

Robotics Integration

  • Collaborate with:

    • Robotics researchers

    • Machine learning engineers

    • Simulation engineers

  • Integrate world models into robot planning and control pipelines to support:

    • Model-predictive control

    • Imagination-based planning

    • Data-augmented training

Data Pipeline Development

  • Build data pipelines for training world models, including:

    • RGB data

    • Depth data

    • LiDAR

    • Proprioceptive sensor streams

    • Multi-sensor fusion

    • Scene annotation

    • Dataset curation

Model Development

  • Write efficient, readable, and extensible code using:

    • Python

    • PyTorch

    • JAX

    • TensorFlow

  • Leverage GPU computing infrastructure for large-scale training and experimentation.

Technical Leadership & Research

  • Contribute to the team's world-modeling roadmap.

  • Identify high-impact research and engineering opportunities.

  • Collaborate with leadership to prioritize investments and technical initiatives.

  • Present research findings and evaluation results to internal stakeholders and external partners.

  • Contribute to:

    • Technical publications

    • Blog posts

    • Conference presentations

Thought Leadership

  • Stay current with state-of-the-art research in:

    • World models

    • Spatial AI

    • 3D vision

    • Neural physics simulation

    • Foundation models for physical understanding

  • Actively contribute to thought leadership and innovation in these domains.

Required Qualifications

Education & Experience

  • Bachelor's degree in:

    • Data Science

    • Mathematics

    • Statistics

    • Econometrics

    • Economics

    • Operations Research

    • Computer Science

    • Related field

AND

  • 2+ years of data science experience involving:

    • Structured and unstructured data

    • Statistical analysis

    • Reporting and insights generation

OR

  • Master's degree in a related field and 1+ year of data science experience

OR

  • Doctorate in a related field

OR

  • Equivalent practical experience

Additional Requirements

Security Clearance Requirements

Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements.

This includes:

Microsoft Cloud Background Check

  • Required upon hire or transfer

  • Repeated every two years thereafter

Preferred Qualifications

Education & Experience

  • Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of relevant data science experience

OR

  • Master's degree and 3+ years of relevant experience

OR

  • PhD and 1+ year of relevant experience

OR

  • Equivalent experience

Robotics & Spatial AI

  • Strong background in:

    • Robotics perception

    • Navigation systems

    • Proprioceptive sensor stacks

    • Systems integration

  • Experience developing algorithms and models for real-world robotic applications.

World Models & Physical AI

  • Experience with:

    • World models

    • Video prediction models

    • Neural physics simulators

    • Generative 3D models

  • Experience modeling and predicting physical environments and interactions.

3D Vision

  • Strong background in:

    • Depth estimation

    • 3D reconstruction

    • NeRF

    • Gaussian Splatting

    • Point cloud processing

    • Spatial reasoning

Machine Learning Infrastructure

  • Proficiency with:

    • PyTorch

    • JAX

    • TensorFlow

  • Experience training large-scale models on:

    • GPU clusters

    • Azure Machine Learning

    • Kubernetes

    • Equivalent infrastructure

Robotics Perception Systems

  • Experience with:

    • RGB-D sensing

    • LiDAR

    • Proprioception

    • Multi-sensor fusion

    • Object pose estimation

    • Scene graph construction

Planning & Reinforcement Learning

  • Familiarity with:

    • Model-based reinforcement learning

    • Model-predictive control

    • Imagination-based planning

    • World-model-driven decision making

Research Contributions

  • Published research or demonstrated contributions in:

    • World models

    • Spatial AI

    • 3D vision

    • Neural simulation

    • Physical AI

  • Publications in venues such as:

    • NeurIPS

    • ICML

    • ICLR

    • CoRL

    • RSS

    • CVPR

    • ECCV

    • Equivalent conferences

Cloud Platforms

  • Experience with:

    • Azure Machine Learning

    • Azure Databricks

    • Azure Cognitive Services

    • Comparable cloud ML platforms

Compensation

Data Science IC3

U.S. Base Salary Range:

  • $102,100 – $202,200 USD

San Francisco Bay Area & New York City Metropolitan Area:

  • $133,800 – $219,200 USD

Compensation varies based on:

  • Location

  • Experience

  • Skills

  • Qualifications

Additional compensation and benefits may be available depending on role and location.

Additional Information

  • This position will remain open for a minimum of five days.

  • Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the role is filled.

Equal Opportunity Statement

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 status

  • 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 or ethnicity

  • Religion

  • Sex (including pregnancy)

  • Sexual orientation

  • Any other characteristic protected by applicable laws and regulations

Applicants requiring religious accommodations or reasonable accommodations due to a disability during the hiring process may request accommodations through Microsoft's accommodations process.