January 16th, 2020

Interning at Microsoft Quantum

Mariia Mykhailova
Principal Software Engineer

Earlier this month, we opened applications for internship positions with the Microsoft Quantum team. Internships are an important part of developing a quantum-ready workforce, and it’s always exciting to see new faces bring fresh energy and ideas into our work!

We hear from many students that they’re excited about quantum computing, but are not sure whether they should apply. So we’re going to demystify our internships by sharing some of the projects our past interns have worked on and how being a research intern with our team differs from being an engineering intern.

Research internships

The Microsoft Quantum internship program started back in 2012 with just three research interns. The program has been growing steadily ever since, reaching a total of 21 interns during summer 2019. Research interns are typically graduate students pursuing a PhD in quantum computing or related subjects. Their internship projects involve exploring new research directions under guidance of full-time researchers on our team, resulting in a paper or even a patent. These internships can grow into a long-term research relationship, and several of our former interns have joined our team as full-time employees soon after their internships. Here are just a few examples:

Software engineering internships

In summer 2019, undergraduate students joined our internship program for the first time in software engineering positions. These students focused on software-oriented projects such as improving the Quantum Development Kit. Although our undergraduate software engineering internship are much newer, we already have some neat success stories to share:

Microsoft Life

Most of our interns join us on the Microsoft Redmond campus. This means they can participate in all summer events there, from the all-Microsoft OneWeek Hackathon and celebration that bring together interns and employees across the company to intern-only events like Microsoft Intern Puzzle Day and workshops hosted by various teams.

"Introduction to quantum computing" workshop for all Microsoft interns “Introduction to quantum computing” workshop hosted by our team for all Microsoft interns

They also get ample exposure to various directions of ongoing quantum computing research, both via their fellow interns’ presentations of their projects and via a weekly journal club.

Does this sound like a great way to spend your summer? Apply to our open intern positions today! Application deadline is January 31st.

Author

Mariia Mykhailova
Principal Software Engineer

Mariia Mykhailova is a principal software engineer at the Advanced Quantum Development team at Microsoft. She works on developing software for fault-tolerant quantum computation. Mariia is also a part-time lecturer at Northeastern University, teaching Introduction to Quantum Computing since 2020, and the author of O’Reilly book “Q# Pocket Guide”. In her spare time, she writes problems for programming competitions and creates puzzles.

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