Do you know what I did last summer?

About the team

I interned with the Azure Research - Systems group at Microsoft Redmond this past summer. While the group is a research group, the group is not a part of Microsoft Research. Instead, it is a strategically placed research group in Azure Core that aims to bring forward-looking world-class systems research into Azure.

A core belief of the group as well as Azure Core is that Azure is the computer to “power” the world and the goal of the group is to make sure that the computer operates as efficiently as possible. To this extent, the group has a very diverse research agenda covering pretty much the whole depth of the system stack. The group includes researchers operating at different levels of the system infrastructure ranging from making Azure more power efficient by changing the infrastructure mechanisms and policies all the way to researching new ways for making it easier for developers to build and debug systems.

The group has been super successful in their research endeavours which is not only evident from the numerous publications and best paper awards they have received but also from the number of successful tech transfers they have managed into core product teams.

For more information about the group, check out their website!

Expectations heading in

Heading in, I was a little bit unsure of what to expect. While I had done internships in companies before, I had never done a research internship. So, like any person who took an algorithm analysis course in their undergrad, I decided to consider the worst-case, average-case, and the best-case scenarios.

Worst-Case Scenario: I had heard about some people having bad experiences at other companies where they basically focused on a product under the guise of a research internship. I was pretty confident that this won’t be the case for my internship.

Average-Case Scenario: I will be part of a team that is potentially socially awkward but very good technically.

Best-Case Scenario: My team will be good both socially and from a research point-of-view but it will probably take me time to get used to their methods and feel like a member of the group.

Having only met 1 or 2 people from the group before, my expectations were somewhere in between the average-case and best-case scenarios. I was pretty optimistic heading in.

Reality

The reality of my experience exceeded my best-case expectations.

As a systems researcher, I thought I had entered a research goldmine. Everyone was working on something cool and interesting. I could turn and talk to the person next to me and I would learn something new almost everyday. I was surrounded by experts in different areas and I learned so much about systems, research, systems research, systems research in industry.

But good research is just 1 part of the experience. For me, the best part of the internship was the dynamics of the group and the environment they had created for the various members. The group did daily lunches and I think I left almost every lunch having either learned some esoteric topic or with tears in my eyes from the unstoppable laughter due to the constant shenanigans of the group members. The group had created an amazing atmosphere where everyone felt comfortable to freely express themselves. At no point, did it feel like that I or any other intern was an outsider to the group. We were welcomed with open arms from day 1 and treated like a full member of the group even though everyone knew we were only there temporarily. We were included in all group events including special events such as the group’s 2 year anniversary.

My Project

My project was centred around using AI to design distributed systems. You can read a project showcase paper on my internship work here. This showcase will appear at this year’s AIOps workshop in Ottawa, Canada.

Sorry, folks, that’s all I can reveal as of now. The NDA prevents me from saying anything substantial about my project until the details are made public. Hopefully, details coming soon to a conference near you 😏

Intern Events

The Microsoft Research Intern Program is run by some of the best and brilliant minds in the world. Throughout the summer, the intern program had organized some of the best intern events that I have ever seen in my life. Here are some of the highlights:

• Mariners ball game in a box right next to Seahawks coach
• Multiple concerts at a vineyard
• Hot Air Balloon Ride (until the Seattle wind screwed the balloon)
• Intro to Mixology from a pro bartender
• VR experience
• Sailing Class (..this was sadly after my internship ended)

In addition to all the events, there was a whole Survivor-style game happening across the summer where the interns had to find secret idols and earn points for their tribe. Needless to say, it got very competitive.

Side Quests

Trivia-based TED? Talk

Throughout the summer, Microsoft Research was doing a whole series on Thursdays where a researcher could share something fun about themselves such as any latent talent they may have or past hobbies or fun stories. I thought, well that sounds like something that would be fun (and a nice ice-breaker in the future for me while networking)

So I decided to sign up for this series. But what would I have talked about? If people ever wanted to know 2 things about me (other than my research) – these would be the 2 key things:

1. I like hosting Trivia… a lot (Read more: https://www.sigops.org/2023/systems-trivia-behind-the-scenes/)
2. I only have 1 name on my passport – only a first name and no last name. Turns out that doesn’t really work well with any organization in the world and each one has their own ridiculous way of dealing with it. In the US alone, I have seen the following variants of my name: Vaastav Vaastav, FNU Vaastav, Unknown Vaastav, Vaastav LNU… and this is just 1 country. It gets much worse. Much worse.

Well, I decided why not just combine the two things and make a trivia round where people have to guess what my name is with a given organization in a given country. This way they’ll get a good laugh out of my misery AND have a reason to remember (some version of) my name.

Here is a photo of me presenting the trivia round.

Reuniting the band

Before I was advised by Antoine Kaufmann and Deepak Garg, I was advised by Jonathan Mace before he quit academia to become an industrial researcher in 2022. This summer served as a sort of a reunion where me and Matheus Stolet (another student of Jonathan’s) got a chance to reunite with our former advisor under the Microsoft brain art installation.

Conclusion

I had the time of my life doing an internship with the Azure Research - Systems group. I gained a lot of experience and a lot of fun stories that I will tell to whoever wants to listen!

If you get a chance to do an internship with them, then do it! It’ll be the best decision you will make in your academic career as a PhD student. On a completely unrelated note, they are hiring summer interns for 2025: internship link