Research Intern

Overview

Come build community, explore your passions, and do your best work at Microsoft with thousands of University interns from every corner of the world. This opportunity will allow you to bring your aspirations, talent, potential, and excitement for the journey ahead.

Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) is extending roles into Singapore and is seeking talent in Foundation Model innovations (LLM, vision, multi-modality, etc.), Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning Foundation, and Industrial AI applications (e.g., AI for Healthcare, Embodied AI and Robotics, etc.).

As a Research Intern, you will conduct research and lead research collaborations that yield new insights, theories, analyses, data, algorithms, and/or prototypes that advance the state-of-the-art in computer science and engineering, as well as general scientific knowledge. You will formulate research problems, initiate the design, development, execution, and implementation of a research agenda to advance academic knowledge, and close identified gaps. You will also provide expertise to product or business groups and may create long-term business opportunities through research outcomes. However, you will not be responsible for addressing immediate product needs or demonstrating a clear path to product.

We are seeking candidates who excel in deep thinking research and fast-paced entrepreneurial execution. The ideal candidates can work with Microsoft researchers and product team colleagues to push forward research agendas, and thrive as team players in a collaborative and supportive environment with strong programming skills. You should demonstrate depth of knowledge in Natural Language Understanding, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Algorithmic Foundations of Optimization, Data Mining, or Machine Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence), along with strong academic experience in data processing, experimentation, and modeling.

Microsoft works with the world's best researchers to share motivation for innovative solutions to the world's toughest challenges and to improve the lives of people everywhere. Microsoft provides a nurturing environment to support passionate researchers and engineers in AI technology innovation.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and improve the performance of advanced algorithms on large-scale datasets and cutting-edge research in machine intelligence and machine learning applications.
• Implement prototypes of scalable systems in AI applications.
• Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level.
• Develop solutions for real-world, large-scale problems.
• Under instruction from others, research new tools, technologies, and methods used in the research community, and contribute knowledge around a specialized tool/method to support planning for research projects.
• Gain an understanding of how your research relates to Microsoft products or business groups and assist in technology transfer efforts, including participating in standards organizations, filing patents, authoring white papers, developing or maintaining tools/services for internal Microsoft use, or consulting for product or business groups.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or related disciplines).
• Must have at least one additional quarter/semester of school remaining following the completion of the internship.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in one or more general-purpose programming languages, particularly Python.
• Familiarity with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar toolkits.
• Hands-on experience training and/or performing inference of large-scale models, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Vision-Language Models (VLMs), and/or diffusion models.
• Demonstrated academic experience, including publications in top-tier conferences or journals, in one or more of the following areas:
  • Natural Language Understanding
  • Computer Vision
  • Machine Learning and Deep Learning
  • Reinforcement Learning
  • Large Language Model or Generative AI

Additional Information

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.