Senior Researcher AI Systems - Cambridge

Salary: £70,000 - 100,000 per year

Requirements:

• We require a PhD (or equivalent research experience) in Computer Science or a related discipline.
• We are looking for a strong research track record in computer systems or a closely related area.
• You should have demonstrated ability to conduct independent research and communicate results through publications, prototypes, or other impactful outcomes.
• We require research expertise in one or more core systems areas such as distributed computing, networking, memory, programming languages, machine learning systems, computer architecture, databases, or related fields.
• You should be able to work effectively across disciplinary boundaries and collaborate with diverse research and engineering teams.
• Preferred: research experience spanning multiple layers of the computing stack.
• Preferred: experience at the intersection of systems and machine learning, systems and programming languages, or systems and hardware.
• Preferred: interest in developing future infrastructure for AI workloads, including reasoning, inference, memory, data processing, agentic systems, and large-scale distributed execution.
• Preferred: experience translating research ideas into deployable systems, tools, or platforms.
• Preferred: strong publication record in leading venues such as SOSP, OSDI, NSDI, SIGCOMM, EuroSys, ASPLOS, FAST, MLSys, PLDI, POPL, ISCA, MICRO, or related conferences.
• Preferred: demonstrated leadership in building collaborations and shaping research agendas.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct original research on the systems foundations of future AI infrastructure and large-scale computing platforms.
• Design new abstractions, architectures, runtimes, and systems that improve the performance, scalability, efficiency, reliability, and programmability of emerging AI workloads.
• Build research prototypes and experimental platforms that explore future directions for AI infrastructure.
• Evaluate ideas through rigorous analysis, large-scale experimentation, and real-world workloads.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers across Microsoft Research and product groups to shape long-term research directions and transfer research into practice.
• Publish high-quality research in top-tier venues.
• Contribute to an open, collaborative, and multidisciplinary research environment.

Technologies:

• AI
• Hardware
• LESS
• Machine Learning

More:

We are Microsoft Research Cambridge, and we are shaping the future of AI infrastructure by tackling long-horizon research challenges that will define the next generation of computing systems, co-designed with the hardware they run on and the models they serve. We offer a full-time Individual Contributor role in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with a hybrid work site of 3 days per week in-office and travel of less than 25%. The role sits within our Research, Applied, & Data Sciences profession and Research Sciences discipline at IC4 level, with a typical base pay range of 74,700.00 - 122,600.00 per year in the United Kingdom. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. We accept applications on an ongoing basis until the position is filled, and we are committed to an inclusive, growth-minded culture that encourages teams and leaders to bring their uniqueness each day.

last updated 37 week of 2026