Research Intern - Speech and Audio Processing

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 Azure AI team is on a mission to advance the state of the art in AI and deliver on our company’s vision for how intelligent cloud and intelligent edge will shape the next phase of innovation. The team includes top scientists and researchers from across Microsoft who are creating a center of excellence in speech, computer vision, and natural language.

Speech and audio AI technology is one of the key drivers for advancing natural user interfaces with natural spoken language. The Speech and Audio Group is on a mission to develop the core speech technologies that empower millions of users to achieve more. Our group brings together talent in the areas of signal processing, speech recognition, speech translation, and speech and audio generation to develop and deliver robust, natural, and scalable speech experience across a rich set of scenarios and languages.

We are seeking interns to contribute to pioneering research in speech and audio. This includes areas such as end-to-end speech recognition and translation, speech and audio generation, and multimodal with LLM. As a Research Intern, you will have the opportunity to conduct both fundamental and applied research in collaboration with our researchers and scientists.

This position offers the opportunity to prototype, demonstrate, and publish your findings within Microsoft’s privileged environment for Azure AI and Azure Open AI services. Most importantly, you will have the chance to push the boundaries of current technologies, making a significant impact on millions of users.

Required Qualifications

• Current PhD candidate in speech recognition, speech translation, separation, and enhancement, speaker recognition and diarization, speech and audio generation, audio processing, deep learning, machine learning, AI or a related field.
• At least 1 year of research experience in speech recognition, speech translation, speech and audio generation, speech LLM, deep learning, machine learning, AI or a related field.

Other Requirements

• Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.
• 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. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with open-source tools such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.
• Publication(s) in top-tier conferences or journals in related fields (e.g., ICASSP, Interspeech, ASRU, SLT, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, Speech Communication, Computer Speech and Language, etc.).
• Proficient communication and writing skills.

The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,550 - $12,880 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 $8,480 - $13,920 per month.

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

Microsoft accepts applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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.