Applied Scientist Intern: Audio Visual Question Answering

We are looking to hire a PhD (or published MSc) candidate for a 12-week internship (ideally from February 2026) to join CMD Labs – an applied science team within Microsoft Teams – to work on the next generation of AI supported meeting experiences.

The intern will be fully onboarded onto our current science and production code base and be expected to investigate, propose, implement and test new algorithms and approaches in this area – solving problems of direct relevance to product. The intern will also be expected to present results internally at the end of the position and write up the work for publication in a leading academic AI conference (e.g. ICML, NeurIPS, ACL, CVPR, Interspeech).

You will partner with research, product and engineering teams to invent and deliver the future for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot and other AI products.

This role is based in Cambridge (United Kingdom).

Our culture is inclusive and collaborative; our team members come from diverse backgrounds, are respectful to one another and achieve impact by building on each other’s strengths and skills. We focus our energy on AI projects that are likely to have high impact on our products and bring high value to our customers. Our team has a strong sense of bias for action and accountability and provides its members with many opportunities for learning and career growth.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities

• Conduct experiments, create and validate metrics, and develop candidate algorithms for effective Audio Visual Question Answering in meeting rooms scenarios.
• Collaborate closely with CMD Labs researchers and engineers to leverage existing assets, datasets, and ensure results can be leveraged back into the product.
• Embody Microsoft culture and values

Qualifications

Required

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program (or published candidate in MSc program) in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, Statistics, or a related field.
• Practical experience in training, fine-tuning, transformer models or LLMs e.g., using text, audio and/or images.
• Practical Python coding experience leveraging PyTorch or similar framework
• Excellent analytical, coding, communication, and collaborative skills.

Preferred

• Field of research and publications directly related to multimodal AI, including e.g., computer vision and audio modelling – with an emphasis on live / real-time applications.
• Experience in model quantization, pruning or distillation.
• Experience working in the domain of live speech processing and conversational AI

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

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.