#explore microsoft

I am excited to announce that I actually have plans for the summer! I was plenty busy last summer but didn’t have any real plans. I was initially hoping to work as a classroom assistant for SSEP, but the program was canceled due to COVID. SSEP stands for Summer Science & Engineering Program and is one of Smith’s pre-college programs. You can read about my experience as an SSEP participant here. I also had the backup plan of continuing my work in the Cunningham Center which you can read a little bit about here. In actuality, I spent the summer at home working on our family farm and doing independent learning with free online resources. To read more about my summer learning, click here. This summer, I will be an Explorer Intern at Microsoft! (Due to COVID, it will actually be virtual). This is a very exciting opportunity that I will be sure to document here on my blog. This post will be about the application process.

In addition to the Microsoft internship, I also applied to a few research programs in human-computer interaction, wireless technologies, and robotics. Yeah, all over the place I know. Those applications required one or two letters of recommendation, a transcript, and an essay or a few short answer questions. In terms of deadlines, they ranged from January 15th to February 22nd. At this point in time, I am yet to hear back from the programs. Two of the programs I applied to are Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) funded by the National Science Foundation. To search for REUs in various fields of study, click here. It’s worth noting that these programs are very competitive and primarily accept rising seniors. 

Explore Microsoft is a 12-week internship that introduces first-years and sophomores to software engineering and program management. The application process was fairly streamlined with clear communication along the way. I submitted my résumé in early January and was invited for an initial interview just a few hours later. In retrospect, it is very shocking that I got invited to an interview as my résumé was lacking the key experiences that came up in my subsequent interviews. Specifically, my Interterm computer science job and my personal coding project of Tascal (a task management app). Fortunately, in scheduling my interview I submitted an updated résumé that included my computer science job. I didn’t include the computer science job in my initial résumé because it had literally started the day before. As for Tascal, I didn’t really know how to add it to my résumé and didn't think it was perfected enough to be a showcase of my skills. With that said, in my updated résumé, I added Dart (the underlying programming language used to code Tascal) as a programming language I know. 

My initial interview, the so-called phone screen, was actually a video call on Codility. Despite being on Codility, there weren’t any coding questions. It was mostly behavioral questions with one somewhat technical design question. It is a good thing that I added the computer science job to my résumé because it was pretty much the only thing from my résumé that my interviewer asked about. She also found my experience working on a farm to be interesting. I was definitely nervous during the interview, but as the program is for first-years and sophomores the interviewers know that it’s probably your first technical interview. Overall the initial interview was a positive experience. It was also a great chance to learn more about the program as my interviewer (a current software engineer) had herself been an Explorer Intern during college. 

My interviewer recommended me for the next steps, but I was placed on a waiting list to get another interview. I was also asked about my team preferences in case I got to move on to the final round of interviews. This was fairly general as the options were AI/ML, cloud platform, cloud tools & services, operating systems, apps & frontend, and security. I ranked apps & frontend first followed by operating systems and the two cloud options. A week later, I got off the waitlist and received an invitation to the final round of interviews. 

The final round of interviews consisted of two interviews via Microsoft Teams. In a normal year, students are flown out to Microsoft for these interviews. Prior to the actual interviews, there was a brief meeting with the other candidates and two recruiters. During both interviews, I was asked a range of questions about my experiences working on a team and general interests in technology. One of the interviews included a simple coding problem that I coded in Java via Codility. (I could choose whatever programming language I felt most comfortable with). During both interviews, I was able to talk about Tascal and some technical challenges I had to work through. Tascal also helped demonstrate my interest in software. Given that one of the questions was about personal projects, it’s a bit surprising that I was moved along in the process without them on my résumé. With that said, the prerequisites for the program are just an introductory computer science course and a semester of calculus. 

The next business day, I got a call from a Microsoft university recruiter. I was elated to learn that I had been offered an Explore internship. I was also informed that my interviewers thought I should be considered for the software engineering internship. This meant I had the option to do one more interview. It was the perfect scenario because if I didn’t pass the interview I would still have the Explore offer! This greatly took away the stress. Furthermore, as I definitely didn’t expect to get the higher internship, I wasn’t too worried about it. The final interview didn’t go that well as I wasn’t really prepared for it. While it was disappointing not to receive the higher offer, I was successfully still successfully accepted into the program that I actually applied to. It is nice going into the internship knowing that I was a really strong candidate rather than just barely getting into the higher internship and thus feeling underprepared. From the official acceptance, I had two weeks to accept the offer. Before officially accepting I met with my engineering advisor. (You can read more about advising at Smith here). I was also put in touch with one of my interviewers to ask more questions about Microsoft and the program. Below is a timeline of my Microsoft application process.

Résumé Submitted: 1-5

Initial Interview Invitation: 1-5

Initial Interview: 1-21

Interview Waitlist Notification: 2-2

Final Round Interview Invitation: 2-10

Final Round Interviews: 2-19

Accepted to Explore: 2-22

SWE Interview: 2-25

SWE Rejection: 2-26

Official Explore Offer: 3-1

Signed Offer Letter: 3-4

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be returning to Microsoft next summer as a software engineering intern! Read on to learn about my specific product team! (If you missed my recent post about my experience as a remote Microsoft Explorer Intern click here). It’s so crazy to already have summer 2022 plans as I haven’t even started my next year of school yet. This year, I didn’t have my summer plans until March which at the time felt sort of early. 

I’ve known all summer that I would likely know by the start of the school year if I’d be returning. This is because return offer decisions are communicated during the final week of the internship. Furthermore, after getting an official offer, you are typically given only two weeks to decide. However, I was actually given a deadline of November 1st as Smith strongly encourages employers to give students until then to commit to a full-time job or internship offer. It is worth noting that Microsoft honored Smith’s policy even though I’d been unaware of it. In fact, my first reaction was that my recruiter had made a mistake. I knew that such policies existed at other schools but had been unable to find one for Smith the last time I’d looked. You can read the full policy here. Even though things worked out for me, it is advisable to proactively let your recruiter know about the policy.

It initially sounded crazy to have so little time to decide but to be honest I’ve had the intention to return for quite a few weeks now. For me, returning to Microsoft makes a lot of sense because it’s been an incredible place to work. Even at the midpoint (before diving into the more technical side), I was leaning towards returning to Microsoft. The easy part was knowing that if I want to do software engineering that Microsoft is where I want to be. The harder part was determining if software engineering is the right career path or whether I should do something that’s a bit closer to the hardware. Even if I ultimately decide not to pursue software engineering as a career, I know that it will be an incredible learning opportunity and that I’ll meet even more great people. Furthermore, it’s a solid line on my résumé. Speaking of résumés, click here to check out the résumé that got me the initial interview at Microsoft. For now, my plan is to continue learning new skills and generally keep my options open. My current post-college vision is that I’ll either go straight into a software engineering role or attend graduate school for something like robotics. 

As an Explorer Intern, the default return offer is a software engineering internship with your current team. While return offers aren’t guaranteed, they aren’t as elusive as they may seem. What you need to remember is that companies like Microsoft invest in their interns as a key part of their recruiting efforts. Of the ten interns with whom I share a recruiter, eight of them received return offers. Returning to your current team doesn’t necessarily mean or guarantee the exact team. Rather, your offer is held at the product group level. Explorer Interns also have the opportunity to change teams or disciplines. The discipline change would be to a program management internship which requires an additional interview. The exact skills that make a great program manager are a bit different from those that make a great software engineer. The other reality is that teams need fewer program managers than they need software engineers. Program management is interesting and I could potentially see moving to the role farther into my career. However, for now, the more technical aspects of software engineering are much more exciting. Furthermore, the experience gained as a software engineer can be applied to both engineering and non-engineering roles. Since program managers typically don’t write code, the reverse transition is significantly more difficult. To change teams, there is a more informal process of meeting with the manager of the new team and making sure your skills and interests align. The other key factor is headcount which is basically whether they have the budget, need, and interest in taking on an intern. To successfully complete a team or discipline change, you must also perform well on your current team and be recommenced for a return offer by your manager. 

Even though I’ve loved my current team, I ultimately decided to request a team change. I’m excited to announce that next summer I will be a software engineering intern on the OneNote Team. Long-time readers of my blog will know that I absolutely love OneNote. (To read some of my past posts about how I use OneNote, click here. In the future, I plan to write more in-depth guides to how I use it as a student). Moving over to OneNote from my current team isn’t a giant leap as I get to stay within MMX (Microsoft Mobile & X-Device Experiences). This actually almost created a problem for me, as I’d heard incorrect information that return offers were at the CVP (corporate vice president) level, and thus concluded that moving over to OneNote wouldn’t be considered an official team change. The decision wasn’t easy, but in the end, being able to work on a product like OneNote is why I was interested in working for Microsoft in the first place. Furthermore, I love the product, the core market it currently serves, and am invested in its modernization and growth. 

Throughout the internship, my manager knew that OneNote is my favorite Microsoft product and about my interests in the more technical side of things. He made it clear early on that he’d be happy to have me return to his team but also encouraged me to explore other teams and offered to help make those connections. With his help (and one of his contacts), I was able to connect with two software engineers and an engineering manager from the OneNote team. From talking to the software engineers, I learned about the team culture and key technologies used. In my conversation with the engineering manager, I got a better understanding of OneNote as it exists now, some of the problems it faces, and the vision for the future.

In the background, my manager had been in communication with my intern champ about my interest in OneNote. Intern champs are full-time employees who take on the additional responsibility of overseeing intern placements within their part of the organization. On Thursday of week ten, I met with my intern champ. Going into the meeting I was expecting to talk about my technical experience, coursework, and my interest in OneNote. Instead, I learned that moving over to OneNote was technically an official team change and was given the name of the OneNote intern champ. The specific reason is that MMX has an intern champ (and corresponding hiring budget) for phone and tasks and another one for notes. I think it was meant to be a five-minute conversation, but I decided to inquire about my options within the phone and tasks part of MMX. I learned that as a returner, I’d be prioritized in team placement and my intern project would be built around my specific interests and skills in addition to the needs of the team. I was initially worried that by moving over to OneNote I’d be making a compromise in regards to the technical components of my project. Furthermore, I was a bit reluctant to move forward with the team change process as I felt like it was already too late. These fears were ultimately unfounded and my intern champ strongly encouraged me to just set up a meeting with the OneNote intern champ.

On the Tuesday of week eleven, I met with the OneNote intern champ (another engineering manager on the OneNote team). We discussed my technical interests and determined that the team run by the original engineering manager I had met with would likely be a good fit. Despite it being an official team change, coming from another team within MMX worked in my favor as both intern champs were happy to hear that I wanted to stay in MMX. The one remaining hurdle was whether that team could take on another intern as they’d already committed to another returning Explorer. Right after that meeting, I met with my manager for our 1:1. I used that time to get an understanding of what our team might look like in a year’s time. Things move fast in tech and given that my team had just graduated out of incubation and that we didn’t yet have Redmond engineers, I knew that the team would transform dramatically. My manager advised me to consider whether I wanted to join a more mature team or one that was relatively new. Later on that evening I got the news (from the OneNote intern champ) that the initial engineering manager I had met with had confirmed his interest in and ability to have me on the team. 

I had until Friday to make my decision. While I knew that both options were incredible, the decision felt a lot bigger than it really was. I created a list of pros and cons for each option (in OneNote of course). On Thursday, I let everyone involved know that I’d chosen the OneNote team via a message on Teams. I emphasized why I’d chosen OneNote, that I’d had an amazing time on my current team, and that I was really appreciative of how supportive everyone had been in letting me make my own decision. That support went a long way in making me feel confident in my decision to return to Microsoft (specifically MMX). It was evident that everyone would be happy to have me on their team, but in the end, just wanted to help me to make an informed decision. With that being said, I have heard that some other teams are significantly less supportive of their interns requesting a team change. The next step was emailing my recruiter to make the request official. I then had to give written confirmation that I understood I would not receive a return offer to my current team if I proceeded with the team change process and that return offers are held at the product group level.

The summer is rapidly coming to a close. A week from today, I’ll be headed back to Smith to start my junior year of college. (Note that while classes don’t start until September, I am returning early for ResLife training). It’s bittersweet as I am excited to return to Smith, but also don’t want my internship to be over so soon. 

While I still have one week left, it seemed like a good time to talk in broad strokes about my internship experience this summer. I’ve previously stated that I am interning on the MMX Incubation Team. Well, some exciting news is that my team has now graduated out of the incubation space! However, as the product hasn’t been released yet, I can’t disclose the new team name or say much of anything about what we are working on. If you’re curious about the résumé that got me an interview, my application process more generally, or interested in applying for next summer, click the respective links. 

As an Explorer Intern, I spent the first half of my internship working as a program manager (PM) and the second half working as a software engineer (SWE). Explorer Interns typically work in pods of three, but there are just two of us in my pod. In addition to our manager, we have PM and SWE mentors. These mentors provide invaluable support and feedback. They also serve as intermediaries between us interns and our manager. This isn’t to say that interns are disconnected from their managers. The distinction is that our manager isn’t directly overseeing our day-to-day work on our intern project. I actually see my manager almost every day at our various team meetings and have weekly 1:1s during which we discuss things that pertain specifically to me and my internship experience. Additionally, I can message him as things come up during the week. Returning to my mentors and podmate, the four of us have weekly video calls and communicate asynchronously via the chat feature of Microsoft Teams. Additionally, during the SWE portion of the internship, my podmate, SWE mentor, and I have had daily standups. During standup, we share what we worked on the previous day, what we are currently working on, and if anything is blocking us. 

Our intern project was to design and enable one or two magic scenarios into a mobile app. (This is intentionally vague, sorry!) It’s worth noting that my podmate and I work closely but are ultimately focused on separate features. As program managers, we completed a competitive analysis of five competitors, brainstormed mobile scenarios with our team, and wrote a functional spec. For this work, Microsoft PowerPoint and Miro were important tools. As software engineers, we wrote a technical design document and used the agile development framework to develop an Android app with intelligent features. We were initially going to build these features on top of an existing app but ultimately ended up building the entire app from scratch. We used Java as the programming language and XML for the layouts. Other key tools and technologies were were Git, Azure DevOps, and Android Studio. 

The overarching goal of the intern project was to investigate the mobile extensions of the main concept being explored by our team. I’ve also contributed to my team by providing feedback on design concepts and by taking detailed notes at our customer feedback sessions. I know that taking notes sounds like “an intern task,” but it really is a meaningful way I’ve helped my team that falls outside of my actual intern responsibilities. Working with my team has been really rewarding and interesting as we have graduated out of the incubation space. 

Last Friday, we gave our official intern presentation to the other phone and tasks interns and full-time employees. We went through a short slide deck and did a live demo. In this final week, I will continue working through some bugs and do some explorations into using machine learning to more intelligently implement my feature. On the last day of the internship, we’ll give one final informal demo to the team. The official presentation was last week because some of the other interns started and ended a week earlier. 

You may be curious about the remote experience. While I would obviously have preferred to be in person, things have worked out really well. For starters, the majority of my coworkers are also working from home. Microsoft provided me with everything I needed to create a productive workspace including a 14-laptop and 27-inch monitor among other things. Furthermore, because my intern project was to develop an Android app, I was sent a Samsung Galaxy S20+. (I need to ship most of the equipment back, but got permission to keep the mouse and keyboard). One interesting thing I have learned about Microsoft is that we have a partnership with Samsung. The key challenge to a remote internship is that it is a lot harder to connect with other interns. Meetings are also more tiring over Microsoft Teams than they would be in person. Additionally, I didn’t have the opportunity to work in the Redmond offices or explore the surrounding area. I was initially really worried about timezone issues, but fortunately, I have had a lot of autonomy in how I structure my days. I typically start my workday at ten eastern but sometimes start at nine. Our team very occasionally has late meetings as our engineering team is in China. 

In my last two posts about how I got into Smith, I shared some insight into what I did in high school both extracurricularly and academically. Following that same theme, here I will be sharing the résumé that miraculously landed me the initial interview at Microsoft and ultimately an Explorer Internship (software engineering and program management). I previously outlined the interview process here. As a recap, I simply uploaded my résumé online as I didn’t have any special connections. I’m okay posting this old résumé as much of the information is already publicly available on LinkedIn. However, it is imperative that I note that the résumé is from January of 2021 and has markedly improved since then as I have gained more experience. Furthermore, I have updated the content of every single section and made some minor formatting improvements. While I’m not sharing my real contact information, you’re always welcome to submit questions and future post ideas here. I was inspired to write this post because I’ve recently seen a few software engineers critique their old résumés on YouTube. 

I wish I could write a full guide to résumé writing, but am definitely not an expert. If you are looking for real advice, check out these handouts from the Lazarus Center for Career Development. The Lazarus Center is an incredible resource that I have definitely underutilized. While I did attend a résumé writing workshop in December of my first year and get my résumé reviewed by a peer advisor the following January, I didn’t engage with the center my entire sophomore year. In addition to online resources, workshops, and peer advisors, Smithies have the opportunity to meet year-round with professional career advisors. Appointments are made on Handshake which is a job/internship search tool for college students. Furthermore, services are available to alumnae who have graduated within the past five years.

While not essential, I do recommend holding on to and organizing your old résumés. It may be useful and is also sort of interesting to look back on. I do this with a Google Drive folder, by including the date in the file names, and with a separate document that links to each résumé and includes a few bullet points about why it was created and where it was submitted to. While I may sound super on top of this organization system, the truth is I created it last week. (I am actually pretty good at keeping things organized and you can read about some of my other systems, here). I already had a few old résumés in an archive folder and then used the revision history feature in Google Docs to make copies of old versions. I also resurfaced some old “résumés” (i.e. unformatted lists of activities and accomplishments) by searching around in my Google Drive. I didn’t write my first real résumé until the summer before Smith when looking for work-study jobs. That’s only partially true as I literally wrote that entire first résumé the day my would-be future employer asked for one. Fortunately, I pulled together a functional résumé, was invited to interview, and was offered the job. I wrote a bit more about that job and how I got it here. Even if you are not yet applying for a job, I highly recommend drafting a résumé now especially if you have free time this summer. 

I’m not kidding when I say it feels like a miracle to have gotten an interview at Microsoft with a not very technically impressive résumé. I’ll be upfront in noting that the internship to which I applied is specifically designed for first and second-year students, so the barrier for entry was lower than your traditional software engineering internship. Furthermore, while my coursework and knowledge did actually exceed the minimum qualifications (from in the job posting), my résumé didn’t clearly convey this. 

Outside of listing my majors and knowledge of Java and Python, my résumé outlined no other technical experience or skills. In retrospect, I perhaps should have included my personal project Tascal (a task management app that I developed last summer), more of my technical skills, and data structures as relevant coursework. What experience did I include then? My role in ResLife, my museum job from my first year, and my five years of seasonal work at a local organic farm. While not related to software engineering, my first interviewer did find farm experience unusual and interesting. In general, it doesn’t seem like GPA is all that important for aspiring software engineers. However, given my lack of relevant experience, I think my strong GPA was actually important. By the time I made it to the actual interviews, my résumé was a bit more technical as I’d been able to add my job as a programming contest assistant. You can read more about that experience here. Other minor edits included adding Dart (the programming language used to build Tascal) to my skills section and adding a link to this blog. You can read more about my interview process here. 

The other main section of my résumé was leadership. Rather than use the traditional reverse chronological order, I decided to list things chronologically in order to highlight my leadership experiences from my first year. Under each Hubbard House position, I included two bullet points with my specific responsibilities. I also included a sub-section about my current leadership positions and was super transparent in noting that the actual responsibilities were limited due to the remote semester. Including the note about my limited responsibilities was the most honest way for me to still include the positions for which I was elected and was attending weekly or biweekly meetings. I didn’t have enough work experience to omit the leadership section and thought only including old positions could be seen as a reg flag. The key takeaway here is that it is possible to get an entry-level tech internship with limited experience. 

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