Research Internships at Microsoft provide a dynamic environment for research careers with a network of world-class research labs led by globally-recognized scientists and engineers, who pursue innovation in a range of scientific and technical disciplines to help solve complex challenges in diverse fields, including computing, healthcare, economics, and the environment.

Do you want to join a world-class engineering team and work on hard technical challenges? If you want to surround yourself with team members around the world who have a proven record of innovation and execution that has made us one of the largest businesses within Microsoft? If yes, please read on.

Microsoft builds a world-class Structured Query Language (SQL) engine with decades of innovation that is used in SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and our cloud analytics scale-out SQL offering Azure Synapse offering data warehouses storing hundreds of terabytes of data. These mission-critical systems require deep systems expertise to build and grow to satisfy the needs of our customers, from making systems that don't ever fail to pushing the absolute boundaries of what performance can be achieved to process queries. The SQL team gets to work on many challenging customer problems and opportunities every single day, and we are looking for candidates that want to come help us build the next generation of features for our customers.

This is an opportunity to work in a diverse and collaborative team environment on challenging technical problems that span the entire stack of database technology - programming languages, query processing/optimization, and distributed systems). We use the latest academic research to push the latest hardware to its limits and to deliver record-breaking query performance.

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.

Responsibilities

Research Interns put inquiry and theory into practice. Alongside fellow doctoral candidates and some of the world’s best researchers, Research Interns learn, collaborate, and network for life. Research Interns not only advance their own careers, but they also contribute to exciting research and development strides. During the 12-week internship, Research Interns are paired with mentors and expected to collaborate with other Research Interns and researchers, present findings, and contribute to the vibrant life of the community. Research internships are available in all areas of research, and are offered year-round, though they typically begin in the summer.

Additional Responsibilities

Research Interns on the team get to work on the latest technology in compute and storage, applying innovative algorithms to solve database problems at scale with great performance. We need collaborative team members who think big and want a challenge.

Responsibilities Include:

• Design, code, test, and develop features with good quality, maintainability, and end to end ownership.

• Be part of the on-call rotation for maintaining service health.

• Mentor new engineers to bring them up to speed in software development environment.

• Invest in code health/refactoring efforts to improve our ability to execute on shipping software to meet customer needs in a timely manner.

• Design and develop highly-efficient code that scales to allow queries to run efficiently over very large data volumes.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science or a related STEM field.

Other Requirements

• Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.

• In addition to the qualifications below, you’ll need to submit a minimum of two reference letters for this position. After you submit your application, a request for letters may be sent to your list of references on your behalf. Note that reference letters cannot be requested until after you have submitted your application, and furthermore, that they might not be automatically requested for all candidates. You may wish to alert your letter writers in advance, so they will be ready to submit your letter.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficient technical background in algorithms (Big-O complexity analysis).

• Experience in writing CPU cache-aware algorithms that maximize performance on a given hardware generation (including structuring code to avoid branch mispredictions).

• Unmanaged language expertise.

• Good understanding of database system internals.

• Working knowledge of x86/x64 assembly.

• Ability to do performance analysis/improvements on multi-threaded server software.

• Experience in building and shipping production grade software or services.

• Results-oriented with a passion for delighting customers with our work.

• Ability to work collaboratively, solve programs in groups, and celebrate success as a team.

Applied Sciences IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $6,290 - $12,170 per Monthly. 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 $8,060 - $13,240 per month.

Learn more about base pay ranges and pay equity: https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/us-intern-pay.html

Microsoft accepts applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

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 (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .