Overview

Hello future teammate! We're on quite the bold mission; we're building an AI companion that's truly empathetic, kind, and equal partners to our users. This isn't an assistant-it's thoughtful collaborator that grows alongside the people they serve. We believe AI should elevate human potential through genuine connection and mutual understanding.

You'll join our small and nimble team as a Prompt Engineer, the architect of these relationships. You'll craft the foundations that enable meaningful human-AI partnerships. You'll shape how our companions think, respond, and evolve through language-if you'll allow slight anthropomorphizing, teach them how to be their best selves. You're somewhat of a designer, somewhat of an engineer, and somewhat of a mad scientist. You'll work intimately with the design and leadership team-because this is the product!-you're designing the core of the experience.

This isn't just engineering-it's a profound exploration of what connection can mean in the age of artificial intelligence. No big deal. Just another Tuesday.

What we are looking for:

Chain-of-thought experience: prompting techniques that guide AI systems through reasoning processes
A novel prompting discovery: a really interesting challenge that you've solved in a creative way
Scaled implementation: you've shipping prompted systems that work reliably at production scale with diverse user populations
Evaluation design: you've built robust testing frameworks to measure AI behavior against goals
User-centric approach: Proven understanding of how prompting decisions impact the lived experience of people who interact with AI
Effective written communication skills: able to convey complex information clearly, concisely, and effectively for various audiences
Comfort with ambiguity in an exponentially growing space

Why us

AIs can do anything. Given the right product focus and talent, AIs can do anything. We're a humble but incredibly talented end-to-end team-we pretrain models, we fine-tune, we evaluate, and we ship Copilot to all consumers of the world. We find ourselves in this beautiful moment in time. You have a profound opportunity to influence the world for the better. AI is not just about being intellectual, it's about getting people to a new place in their life-elevating, bettering, supporting, empowering. Really understanding. And seeing someone whole. That's our focus. Does that resonate with 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.

Starting January 26, 2026, MAI employees are expected to work from a designated Microsoft office at least four days a week if they live within 50 miles (U.S.) or 25 miles (non-U.S., country-specific) of that location. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.

Responsibilities

Design & develop prompting techniques for emotional and intellectual use cases
Establish frameworks for AI companions to navigate complex social and ethical situations with nuance and care
Create evaluations to measure both technical/practical performance and non-deterministic performance like EQ
Teach others prompting techniques and ways-of-working to elevate the prompting skill throughout the team
Research & implement novel prompting techniques
Embody our culture and values.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Philosophy, Linguistics, Psychology, Literature, or related discipline AND 4+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python
OR equivalent experience.
2+ years of experience with large language models.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

An understanding of conversation design or product design.
Familiarity with both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessment methods.
Experience with personalization systems that adapt to individual user needs.
Adversarial prompting experience or conducted some unhinged experiments.

Software Engineering IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 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 $158,400 - $258,000 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 and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

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