HCI/EUP Internships at Microsoft Research Cambridge

[advait]

Dear PPIG, hope you are doing well.

I'm writing to let you know about a research internship within our spreadsheets and end-user programming research group at Microsoft Cambridge. Here's our ad:

Spreadsheets are the world’s most widely-used programming technology and the definitive low-code and no-code platform. The recent success of large language models (LLMs) creates an opportunity to take a qualitative step forward, to extend dramatically the reach of what end users can do with spreadsheets.  

We are hiring multiple interns to join an ambitious, multidisciplinary research team on the future of work, and spreadsheets or computational notebooks in particular. We are a global team with members across Microsoft including Calc Intelligence (MSR Cambridge), RiSE (MSR Redmond), Excel and PROSE (Developer Division). Some of the interns will be co-mentored by a member of the Excel team. 

The interns will join us for summer 2023 in Cambridge UK, with dates being negotiable. The exact internship projects will be chosen to fit the expertise of successful applicants. We are interested in a broad range of areas including: 

• Synthesizing formulas and data transformations via LLMs, including prompt engineering, decomposition, and chain of thought reasoning 
• Improving the experience of authoring and debugging formulas 
• Improving the experience of reading and understanding spreadsheets 
• Using insights from type systems, static analysis, program synthesis and machine learning to debug and repair generated computations by LLMs 
• Using large language models to provide intelligent assistance to spreadsheet users  

We seek interns with expertise in one or more of the following research areas: programming-languages, HCI and user experience, machine learning. There is a genuine possibility that your work could have real-world impact. Past interns have been heavily involved in impactful projects that have transitioned into products. Our team’s impact on many millions of customers features in the history of research collaborations with Microsoft Excel, the Microsoft Wall of Fame, and even XKCD. 

Apply here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/1496651/Internship-Opportunity-Future-of-Work-Applying-Large-Language-Models-to%C2%A0Spreadsheets

Perhaps you know a PhD student who might be suitable? If so, please pass along the ad and encourage them to apply. We strongly encourage applications to be in the system by Monday 12th December. If you or your students intend to apply but cannot meet this deadline, please email us to make us aware of your intention. We will consider every applicant who has reached out to us.

Informal inquiries may be made to me (adv...@microsoft.com)or to Andy Gordon (a...@microsoft.com).

Best,

Advait