Research Intern - AI Frontiers - Reasoning & Agentic Models

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 across a range of scientific and technical disciplines to help solve complex challenges in computing, healthcare, economics, the environment, and beyond.

The AI Frontier Lab at Microsoft Research is seeking candidates to advance the state of the art in agentic model capabilities—creating models and agents that can reliably perform tasks across digital systems on behalf of humans, combining automation, reasoning, and interaction capabilities to execute workflows end-to-end, leveraging both text-based environments (CLI tools, APIs, scripts, MCPs) and visual environments (GUI applications).

Our lab conducts cutting-edge research in AI and publishes findings in top-tier venues such as NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, and others. We release models and libraries in open source (e.g., Phi-4, Phi-4-reasoning, AgentInstruct, AutoGen, MagenticOne), while also working within Microsoft’s ecosystem to ship AI technologies in multiple products.

We seek Research Interns with demonstrated ability for technical work and a proven record of influential publications in Artificial Intelligence.

Research areas of particular interest for this team include, but are not limited to:

• Reinforcement learning approaches for improving logical and mathematical reasoning, tool use, and computer-use agents
• Developing novel training algorithms for enhancing reasoning and action-taking efficiency and reliability
• Exploring synthetic environment creation, multi-agent training, and self-play for RL training
• Exploring scaling laws between test-time and training-time compute
• Advanced optimization techniques for efficient training of large-scale models

Our group takes a holistic approach to improving foundational models that includes a variety of data modalities (language, vision, multi-modal, and structured data) and modern model architectures.

Responsibilities

Research Interns translate inquiry and theory into practice. Working alongside doctoral candidates and world-class researchers, Research Interns learn, collaborate, and network for life. They contribute to cutting-edge research and development, advance their own careers, and participate in the vibrant life of the community. During the 12-week internship, Interns are paired with mentors, collaborate with other Interns and researchers, present findings, and contribute to the lab’s activities. Internships are available in all areas of research, offered year-round, and typically begin in the summer.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Accepted or currently enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science or a related STEM field
• At least 1 year of experience with deep learning and large language model training

Other Requirements

• Interns are expected to be physically located at their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of the internship
• In addition to the qualifications below, a minimum of two reference letters, a cover letter, and any relevant work or research samples are required. After submission, a request for letters may be sent to references. Reference letters may not be requested for all candidates and are not guaranteed automatically. Please inform your references in advance so they can submit promptly.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven expertise in language model pre-training, post-training, or reinforcement learning
• Proven publication record in top-tier conferences
• Demonstrated ability to develop original research and perform hands-on research in a collaborative and dynamic environment

The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,710 – $13,270 per month. A different range applies to specific work locations within the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area, with a base pay range of USD $8,760 – $14,360 per month for those locations.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. For additional benefits and pay information, see: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay

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.

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 or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, learn more about requesting accommodations.