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Lily Zhang changed Microsoft during her internship, all without setting foot on the company’s campus or meeting anyone there in person.
That’s the life of an intern during COVID-19 and remote work.
Our goal was to be seen as one of the premier engineering organizations at Microsoft. To do that, we needed to be bringing in top talent to the organization, and our internship program is one of the most important ways we can do that—not only is it a way to bring in graduates from top colleges and universities, it’s a way to bring in people with diverse backgrounds, talents, and skills.
– Danielle Fox de Aguilar, senior director of Workforce Strategy, Microsoft Digital
“I feel like I made a difference during my internship,” says Zhang, a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. “I got to work on a project that was meaningful and made a difference for Microsoft.”
That’s the goal of the company’s internship program, even when the interns have to report for work from home, says Danielle Fox de Aguilar, a senior director in Microsoft Digital, the engineering organization at Microsoft that builds and manages the products, processes, and services that Microsoft runs on. She’s leading the effort to transform the way Microsoft Digital approaches recruiting.
“Our goal was to be seen as one of the premier engineering organizations at Microsoft,” she says. “To do that, we needed to be bringing in top talent to the organization, and our internship program is one of the most important ways we can do that—not only is it a way to bring in graduates from top colleges and universities, it’s a way to bring in people with diverse backgrounds, talents, and skills.”
Fox de Aguilar says it was critical to make sure Zhang and Microsoft Digital’s other summer interns had a high-quality experience even though they would never get to walk on the campus or physically meet with their managers, mentors, peers, and fellow interns.
“The interns coming into Microsoft Digital have great backgrounds,” she says. “They choose to come here over our competitors, so we needed to make sure we gave them a great experience.”
I worked on an onboarding tool for new Microsoft employees. We used to have to record lots of metadata about new employees by hand—that process was very tedious and prone to errors. Now everything is much faster and more accurate. Human error has been reduced significantly.
– Lily Zhang, graduate student in Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
Interns are put on mission-critical projects that empower them to learn a lot while working on the company’s technology and developer tools. Giving them access to work with Microsoft Azure and access to the Microsoft Azure DevOps development platform was also a must.
Most importantly, they needed to feel like they were doing work that was both meaningful to them and would make an impact within their organization and the company—something that rang true for Zhang.
“I worked on an onboarding tool for new Microsoft employees,” Zhang says. “We used to have to record lots of metadata about new employees by hand—that process was very tedious and prone to errors.”
Her work automating how employee data is inputted and extracted from the tool has immensely improved the experience for users. “Now everything is much faster and more accurate,” she says. “Human error has been reduced significantly.”
[Learn how Microsoft turned to Windows Virtual Desktop to save 600 Microsoft internships in India.]
Getting remote internships right
Interns with Microsoft Digital have an opportunity to work on high-stakes projects and some of the most impactful work that the organization takes on, says John Holk, who is leading the implementation of Microsoft Digital’s internship program.
“Our interns should get more out of the internship than we ask the interns to give us,” Holk says. “Our expectation of managers is committing to providing robust experiences that will help each intern learn and grow and contribute their unique talents to meaningful projects that allow them to make a difference.”
It’s about giving them a taste of what it would be like to work at Microsoft.
“We aim to give them projects that showcase Microsoft as a great company, so that they want to come back and work here,” he says. “When they come back to Microsoft, we want them to be able to see their projects being deployed across the company.”
Even if they choose to go somewhere else, the goal and the opportunity is the same.
“We want them to become proponents of Microsoft,” he says. “Regardless of the outcome, it’s important that they walk away with a great experience.”
Offering a rich, high-quality experience was more challenging this year because of COVID-19.
“COVID was on everyone’s mind,” Holk says. “Our interns had concerns about working remotely—they wanted to come to Microsoft, to experience working on campus, to network, to get a feel for what we’re all about. They wanted to know how that would work—how could they be successful finding their way around the company, to do real work, and to feel like they belonged.”
The internship team built a plan for how they would help interns have a full, rich experience.
Every effort was made to bring interns into the teams that they worked on, not only making sure that they got to work on important projects, but also helping them feel like they were part of the team.
Kurt DelBene, the executive vice president of Microsoft Digital, met with the interns, answering their questions about MS Digital and its culture while sharing his vision for how to transform Microsoft from the inside out. “He welcomed them to Microsoft Digital, told them what we’re all about, and encouraged them to get the most of their time at Microsoft,” Holk says. The interns were also invited to all-hands and team meetings, and met one-on-one with folks on their teams.
And yes, there was Microsoft swag.
We wanted to hear from them, to get their fresh ideas on our work. There’s a real benefit to getting an outsider’s view.
– John Holk, principal program manager, Workforce Strategy, Microsoft Digital
“We put together a care package with a sweatshirt and little things like that,” Holk says. “We had a couple of surprise packages that, even though they couldn’t do their internship locally, gave them something that represented the area to help them feel more connected to Microsoft.”
Fun aside, the goal was to give the interns the full Microsoft experience despite COVID-19, and importantly, to make the learning a two-way street.
“We wanted to hear from them, to get their fresh ideas on our work,” he says. “There’s a real benefit to getting an outsider’s view.”
Fox de Aguilar says the effort to transform the intern program is working.
“The investment that everyone has made in our internship program is paying off because we’re making it a great experience for our interns,” she says.
Learn how Microsoft turned to Windows Virtual Desktop to save 600 Microsoft internships in India.
