Microsoft Careers Stage

Research Intern - Interactive Multimodal Futures Group (Situated & Affective Computing)

2025-12-02

United States, Massachusetts, Cambridge +1 more

3 days / week in-office

Overview 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. The Interactive Multimodal Futures (IMF) group at Microsoft Research seeks a PhD-level Research Intern to work on a project at the intersection of situated interaction, affective computing, and human-centered AI systems. The project will include elements of multimodal sensing (physiology, speech, gaze, gestures, olfaction/gas, etc.), signal processing, and real-time interaction.Our group’s research spans several sub-areas: <ul><li>Human-centered AI for affective computing and adaptive experiences.</li><li>Situated interaction between humans and AI systems deployed in the physical world.</li><li>Conversational AI Agents that are empathetic and context aware.</li><li>Ambient intelligence with unobtrusive sensing in the real world.</li></ul> You will collaborate with IMF researchers to prototype systems, run user studies, develop machine learning models, and explore technical capabilities of generative AI for human-AI interaction. Please include a cover letter indicating which of the above research topics you are most interested in and aligned with. Be sure to indicate which of the specific preferred qualifications (listed below) you possess. 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<ul><li>Design and implement research prototypes for real-time situated and adaptive interaction.</li><li>Explore the use of the latest generative AI techniques related to interpreting multimodal interaction, conversation, and behavioral signals.</li><li>Conduct user studies and analyze multimodal data.</li><li>Contribute to publications and share findings with the research community.</li></ul> Qualifications Required Qualifications<ul><li>Currently enrolled in a PhD or equivalent program in HCI, HRI, Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Psychology, or related STEM field.</li><li>At least 2 years of research experience using human-centered approaches in HCI, HRI, ML, CV, or Affective Computing.</li></ul>Other Requirements<ul><li>Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.</li><li>In addition to the qualifications below, you’ll need to submit a minimum of two reference letters for this position as well as a cover letter and any relevant work or research samples. 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. </li><li>Please include a cover letter indicating which of the research topics you are most interested in and aligned with. Be sure to indicate which of the specific preferred qualifications (listed below) you possess. </li></ul>Preferred QualificationsWe are looking for some combination of the following qualifications (please address these in your cover letter):<ul><li>Experience writing peer-reviewed publications.</li><li>Experience with generative AI techniques, ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch), and real-time interactive systems.</li><li>Strong collaboration and communication skills.</li><li>Conducting human-subjects research.</li><li>Experience implementing research prototypes (frontend, backend, or both).</li><li>Using human-centered design & research methods.</li><li>Familiarity with reinforcement learning or time-series signal processing.</li><li>Working with large datasets (e.g., text, vision, physiology, behavioral).</li></ul>Affective Computing sub-area:<ul><li>Background in affective computing, behavioral, or physiological sensing.</li><li>Experience collecting data with wearable devices.</li><li>Hardware prototyping or wearable device experience.</li><li>Healthcare/wellbeing experience - e.g., pain assessment and modeling (nociceptive signals, stress/anxiety detection), or collaboration with clinical partners.</li><li>Olfaction & gas sensing - e.g., experience with electronic noses, breath analysis, or volatile organic compound sensing.</li></ul>Situated Interaction sub-area:<ul><li>Demonstrated experience in programming multimodal systems that interact with real human users, e.g., robots or virtual agents, particularly by integrating multiple machine-learned components such as computer vision, speech recognition, dialogue handling, natural language generation, etc.</li><li>Demonstrated experience in conducting research outside of a controlled lab environment, e.g., field research, ethnography, in-the-wild studies, etc.</li></ul>Conversational AI Agents sub-area:<ul><li>Experience prototyping real-time conversational AI agents using tools such as the OpenAI Realtime API, including function calling, and supporting interactions via text, voice, and other interfaces.</li><li>Designed, implemented, and evaluated different personality styles for AI agents, varying factors such as communication style, voice characteristics, and emotional tone to study their impact on user experience, engagement, and trust.</li><li>Incorporated multimodal sensory inputs (e.g., text, audio, contextual signals) to enhance interaction quality and make agent responses more adaptive and context aware.</li></ul>Ambient Intelligence sub-area:<ul><li>Leveraging the latest in AI techniques to perform sensing in the real world</li><li>Working with multimodal AI models</li></ul> You can upload documents by going to your profile on the career site and clicking on the Resume Manager tab in the top right of the page, and from there selecting Other Documents.If you are having trouble submitting your application, please go to the bottom of the page and click "Support" and fill out the requested information. The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,710 - $13,270 per month. 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 $8,760 - $14,360 per month. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay">https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay</a> Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work. This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. <hr> 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, 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html">requesting accommodations.</a>

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Research Intern - AI Inference Architecture

2025-11-26

United States, Massachusetts, Cambridge +1 more

3 days / week in-office

Overview 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. Researchers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are harnessing the explosion of digital data and computational power with advanced algorithms to enable collaborative and natural interactions between people and machines that extend the human ability to sense, learn and understand. The research infuses computers, materials and systems with the ability to reason, communicate and perform with humanlike skill and agility. Microsoft’s deep investments in the field are advancing the state of the art in machine intelligence and perception, enabling computers that understand what they see, communicate in natural language, answer complex questions and interact with their environment. In addition, the company’s researchers are thought leaders on the ethics and societal impacts of intelligent technologies. The research, tools and services that result from this investment are woven into existing and new products and, at the same time, made open and accessible to the broader community in a bid to accelerate innovation, democratize AI and solve the world’s most pressing challenges. This Research Internship is an opportunity to work alongside world-class researchers and engineers to define the future generations of AI inference system architectures. 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. Qualifications Required Qualifications<ul type="disc"><li>Currently enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or a related STEM field.</li><li>At least 1 year of experience working with LLM inference software stack and systems.</li></ul>Other Requirements<ul type="disc"><li>Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.</li><li>In addition to the qualifications below, you’ll need to submit a minimum of two reference letters for this position as well as a cover letter and any relevant work or research samples. 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. </li></ul>Preferred Qualifications<ul type="disc"><li>Familiarity with computer architecture and system performance modeling.</li><li>Experience with PyTorch, CUDA, and parallel programming.</li><li>Demonstrated ability to develop original research agendas.</li><li>Ability to think unconventionally and derive creative, innovative solutions.</li><li>Proficient communication skills, both written and verbal.</li><li>Proven interpersonal skills with the ability to work effectively across groups and cultures.</li></ul> The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,710 - $13,270 per month. 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 $8,760 - $14,360 per month. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay">https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay</a> Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work. This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. <hr> 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, 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html">requesting accommodations.</a>

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Senior Researcher - AI Agents - Microsoft Research

2025-11-26

United States, Massachusetts, Boston +4 more

3 days / week in-office

Overview <div>Microsoft Research (MSR) AI Frontiers is inviting applications for a Senior Researcher to join our team. </div><div> </div><div>At MSR AI Frontiers, we pursue ambitious research to advance AI in areas such as modeling, algorithms, agents, and agentic systems. We foster a vibrant environment for multidisciplinary work with an open publication policy, close ties to leading academic institutions, and a commitment to impact beyond research. We regularly release open-source models, libraries, and tools to accelerate community progress, while also working within Microsoft’s ecosystem to ship AI technologies across multiple products, ensuring our innovations create real-world value for people. </div><div> </div><div>We are seeking exceptional candidates to advance the state-of-the-art in agentic systems and ecosystems. Relevant projects from our lab include agentic systems (e.g., <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/orca-progressive-learning-from-complex-explanation-traces-of-gpt-4/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Magentic-UI</a>, <a href="https://aka.ms/magentic-one-blog" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Magentic-One</a>), ecosystems (e.g., <a href="https://aka.ms/magentic-marketplace-blog" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Magentic Marketplace</a>), frameworks (e.g., <a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/autogen/autogen-reimagined-launching-autogen-0-4/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AutoGen</a>), models (e.g., <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/phi-4-reasoning-technical-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Phi</a>, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/orca-progressive-learning-from-complex-explanation-traces-of-gpt-4/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Orca</a>) and tools (e.g., <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.03502" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AgentInstruct</a>, <a href="https://microsoft.github.io/autogen/0.2/blog/2023/12/01/AutoGenStudio/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AutoGen Studio</a>). </div><div> </div><div>Focus areas for this position include, but are not limited to, the following: </div><div><ul><li>Agentic Systems. Building state-of-the-art agentic systems, applications, and environments. </li><li>Agent Ecosystems. Building agent-native ecosystems (e.g., frontier firms, agentic markets) where agents can effectively collaborate alongside people and other agents. </li><li>Advanced Agentic Capabilities. Post-training models for advanced agentic capabilities, including reinforcement learning, fine-tuning, self-play, and synthetic data generation. </li><li>Human-Agent Interaction. Creating novel human-agent interaction techniques and experiences. </li><li>Evaluation & Tooling. Developing evaluation benchmarks, methods, and tooling for agentic capabilities. </li><li>Responsible AI. Ensuring agents operate safely and responsibly while delivering real value to people. </li></ul></div><div> </div><div>As a Senior Researcher on our team, you will work hands-on on challenging and impactful projects. You will apply your strong technical skills and expertise to build practical solutions to real world problems. Additionally, you will collaborate closely with other researchers and engineers across the company to amplify your impact and grow your career in a supportive and stimulating environment. </div> Responsibilities <div><ul><li>Outcome Driven Innovation- The ability to strategically recognize and address unmet needs in industry or knowledge and to create novel, practical, and effective solutions to these unmet needs. This involves the ability to work backwards in research and development, focusing more heavily on the problem to lead to a solution rather than creating something highly original but lacking in application potential. </li><li>Collaborative Innovation- Knowledge of others' expertise and the ability to involve multiple players (within and outside the organization) in the creation or development of novel products, processes, or research streams. </li><li>Problem Solving- The ability to identify problems and review related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions. </li><li>Decision Making- The ability to make decisions in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment. This includes the ability to define, diagnose, and determine an appropriate resolution, recommendation, or decision while considering alternatives and factors (e.g., resources, costs, tradeoffs). </li><li>Scientific Method- Knowledge of and the ability to use an empirical method of acquiring knowledge. This involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, formulating a question or hypothesis, testing the hypothesis through experimentation, drawing conclusions, reporting results, and evaluating the process and retesting the hypothesis. </li></ul></div> Qualifications Required Qualifications:<ul><li>Doctorate (or currently pursuing) in Computer Science or related fields <ul><li>OR equivalent experience </li></ul></li></ul><span data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"dff0ac53-c08a-53af-8c37-6898e9240927|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Calibri",469777842,"Calibri",469777843,"Calibri",469777844,"Calibri",201341986,"1",469769226,"Calibri",268442635,"22",469775450,"x_msonormal",201340122,"2",134233614,"true",469778129,"xmsonormal",335572020,"1",335559740,"240",201341983,"0",335559739,"0",469778324,"Normal"]}" data-ccp-parastyle="x_msonormal">Preferred Qualifications:<ul><li><span data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"dff0ac53-c08a-53af-8c37-6898e9240927|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Calibri",469777842,"Calibri",469777843,"Calibri",469777844,"Calibri",201341986,"1",469769226,"Calibri",268442635,"22",469775450,"x_msonormal",201340122,"2",134233614,"true",469778129,"xmsonormal",335572020,"1",335559740,"240",201341983,"0",335559739,"0",469778324,"Normal"]}" data-ccp-parastyle="x_msonormal">Publication record as a lead author or essential contributor at top venues such as: CHI, NeurIPS, UIST, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CVPR, AAAI, ICAPS. </li><li>Doctorate in Computer Science or relevant field AND 2 years related research experience  <ul><li>OR equivalent experience.   </li></ul></li><li>Hands-on experience working with large foundation models (e.g., OpenAI GPT models, LLAMA etc) and state-of-the-art AI/ML frameworks and toolkits (e.g., Pytorch, Tensorflow, Langchain, AutoGen). </li><li>Demonstrated software engineering experience building and deploying prototypes, applications, or open-source technologies. Providing a link to GitHub profile (if available) and/or code samples, is highly encouraged. </li><li>Hands-on experience evaluating AI models or systems (e.g., running benchmark experiments or user studies, analyzing data). </li><li>Experience working in multi-disciplinary teams along with a team player mindset, characterized by effective communication, collaboration, and feedback skills. </li><li>Reference letters are welcomed, though they are not mandatory. Please include them if available. </li></ul> Research Sciences 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: <a href='https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay'>https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay</a> This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. <hr> 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, 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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html">requesting accommodations.</a>

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