Research Internship in Redmond, WA

Overview

Microsoft's Research Internships offer a dynamic environment for research careers, with a network of world-class research labs led by globally recognized scientists and engineers. They work on complex challenges in computing, healthcare, economics, and the environment.

Join M365 Research to help build the next generation of AI agents that handle long-running work, retain what matters, and improve with experience. The team conducts applied research on how agentic systems are built, evaluated, and deployed at enterprise scale, and moves these advances into Microsoft products. The team works closely with research teams and product groups worldwide and shares its work through peer-reviewed publications, open-source releases, blog posts, patents, and industry conferences.

Research Focus Areas

• Agent memory and skills: building and maintaining memory, context, and reusable skills so long-running agents stay current and keep improving.
• Reliable, self-improving agents: diagnosing failures in long agent trajectories, improving agents without regressions, and evaluating them in realistic simulated environments.
• Proactive, long-horizon agents: planning, multi-agent coordination, and self-monitoring for agents that work over extended periods.

Responsibilities

Research Interns put inquiry and theory into practice, working alongside doctoral candidates and leading researchers. They learn, collaborate, and build a professional network, while contributing to research and development progress.

During the 12-week internship, interns are paired with mentors and are expected to collaborate with other interns and researchers, present their findings, and take part in the research community. Internships are available in all research areas and are offered year-round, though they typically begin in the summer.

Other Requirements

• Interns must be physically located at their manager's Microsoft worksite location for the full internship.
• Applicants must submit at least two reference letters, a cover letter, and any relevant work or research samples. Reference letters can only be requested after the application is submitted and may not be requested for every candidate, so letter writers should be alerted in advance.

Preferred Qualifications

• At least 1 year of experience conducting research and authoring peer-reviewed publications.
• Experience in machine learning, NLP, or related AI areas such as LLMs and AI agents.
• Hands-on experience with agent memory, skill or tool learning, RL or post-training, agent evaluation, self-improvement, planning, or multi-agent systems.
• Demonstrated coding skills, including building agent systems and rapid prototyping with AI coding agents.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate across research and product teams and apply research to real-world problems.
• Publications in top venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, COLM, AAAI, IJCAI, KDD, or SIGIR.

Base pay for this internship is USD $6,810 to $13,480 per month. In the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area, the base range is USD $8,920 to $14,610 per month. Certain roles may also be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Microsoft accepts applications and processes offers on an ongoing basis throughout the academic calendar (September to April). The position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted until it is filled.