Introduction
What is it like to intern at one of the world’s leading tech companies? For three weeks, two of my fellow students and I had the opportunity to find out. My name is Camilla, a third-year computer science student at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. This semester, I took an elective course focused on gaining work experience and familiarizing myself with the job market. As part of this course, we interned at Microsoft Development Center Norway. During this time, we shadowed engineers, explored new technologies, and worked on an exciting project that challenged our technical and creative skills. In this post, I’ll share the
highlights, challenges, and lessons from my time at Microsoft.
Microsoft is one of the largest companies at the heart of software development and distribution, especially renowned for their Office 365 suite. This suite, including tools like Microsoft Teams, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, has become one of the most indispensable in both personal and professional settings. But Microsoft’s ambitions
extend far beyond office productivity. With a mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, the company has expanded into diverse sectors, including gaming, professional networking, and developer tools. Some of Microsoft’s notable acquisitions include gaming giants like Blizzard and Mojang (creators of World of Warcraft and Minecraft), LinkedIn (a leading professional networking platform), and GitHub (a vital tool for developers worldwide). Other notable acquisitions that resonate with me include Rare (creators of Sea of Thieves), Clipchamp, and npm. Each of these acquisitions contributes to Microsoft’s diverse and innovative portfolio. In 2008, Microsoft acquired Fast Search & Transfer, a Norwegian enterprise search company, which led to the establishment of Microsoft Development Center Norway. This hidden gem in Tromsø is where I spent three weeks immersing myself in the daily life of a software engineer.
Fun Fact : Microsoft’s Tromsø office is uniquely structured into three thematic layers: Mountain peaks, Islands, and Fish.
Learning & Activities
Extracurricular activities
Before diving into the technical aspects of the internship, let’s talk about the social and cultural side of working at Microsoft. From my previous experience in IT, I’ve learned that coffee is practically a lifeline for tech professionals – and Microsoft seems to agree! Their offices are equipped with state-of-the-art coffee machines and a fully stocked fridge with a variety of beverages, ensuring employees stay energized
throughout the day. Exploring the variety of drink options was a small but memorable highlight of the experience. The cafeteria’s chef consistently prepares amazing lunches, challenging employees’
taste buds with diverse and exciting menus. Usually after lunch, the team that we have mainly been shadowing have a mandatory ping pong session in what they refer to as the fun room. Here I witnessed greatness in ping pong games by the regulars, only dreaming of becoming somewhat comfortable of playing. After the ping pong session ends, we interns usually play a few games without the pressure of being watched by the professionals. This year Microsoft is celebrating their 50th anniversary, and during our stay at Microsoft we were so lucky to get invited to tag along to their celebration. It couldn’t have been better timing to be interning, it truly was such a privilege. During lunch our very last Friday there were lots of different cakes for dessert to celebrate. The main celebration kicked off after hours with beer and snacks while we waited for the Americans to wake up to stream the celebration itself. After the celebration, we all went out to Epic for some karaoke and fun times, the perfect way to end our
internship. 🥳
However, while it may seem like all we do is sip coffee or other drinks, socialize and play ping pong, there’s definitely more to it!
Microsoft Tromsø—a highlight of office life.
skills.
Learning Sessions
At Microsoft, continuous learning is a core value, either by taking each opportunity to learn on their own (learning Fridays) or by lifting others to achieve more by teaching. During our internship, we had the opportunity to utilize their in-house expertise and attend tailored learning sessions on topics that extended beyond our university
curriculum, based on our request. These sessions not only broadened my understanding of the tech industry, but also provided valuable insights that we could apply to our project and our job market experience. We attended tailored learning sessions on topics we requested, including but not limited to the following:
– LLM/prompt engineering
– Product Managing (PMs)
– CV and interviews
– Data security
– Accessibility
Work assignments
So far, we’ve only talked about the additional tasks we’ve been involved in, but the core of our experience has been immersing ourselves in the day-to-day life of an engineer at Microsoft. This has included participating in daily meetings, adopting work methods like project-based collaboration, and applying concept from our software engineering course. We’ve worked extensively with agile methods, integrating them into our project work at Microsoft with multiple check-ins a week. To gain a broader perspective, we’ve also shadowed multiple teams across Microsoft to observe how they implement agile methodologies in their daily routines, how they collaborate, and how they communicate effectively as a team.
When we first started at Microsoft, we kicked the week off with a startup meeting to brainstorm and plan. The goal was to figure out how many projects we could take on, what types of projects would be most beneficial and interesting, and how long each project should last. Since Microsoft couldn’t provide us with access to their internal codespace, we decided to focus on creating a single, larger project aiming to incorporate most – if not all – of the learning sessions we attended. After some discussion, we landed on the idea of developing a game that combines elements of Kahoot! and TypeRacer into our own product called QuizRacer. It is a quiz-like game powered by AI, where the fastest player to answer all the questions correctly wins. While the game could still be considered work in progress due to bugs and further improvements, it’s been an exciting challenge to design and build something that combines creativity, technical skills, and teamwork. On our very last Friday at Microsoft, we demoed the project to the entire office, inviting anyone who had the time and interest to see what we had been working on. The demo
was a huge success, with many people showing interest in our work and expressing enthusiasm for the final product. The team we shadowed even expressed interest in using this for their retrospective meetings instead of Kahoot.
Final Thoughts
Reflecting on my three weeks at Microsoft Development Center Norway, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself in the daily life of a software engineer. From participating in agile project workflows to developing QuizRacer, this internship has been an enriching and rewarding experience. Not only did I gain technical skills, but I also learned the importance of collaboration, adaptability, and continuous learning. The connections I made and the insights I gained broadened my perspective on the tech industry beyond my university studies. Looking ahead, this internship has opened doors to exciting
possibilities. I am now considering writing my master’s thesis in collaboration with Microsoft, and the prospect of joining their team in the future is incredibly motivating.
A huge thank you to Microsoft for hosting us with open arms, and to Iver and Helge from the university for making this opportunity possible. I’m grateful to my mentors—Lisa, Theo, Steffen, Lars, Anders, and Bjørnstein for their guidance and invaluable support throughout our internship. Lastly, a big shoutout to my fellow interns, Stine and Daniel—you helped make this internship something to remember.
anniversary in the meeting rooms.
Microsoft Tromsø.
nationalities of Microsoft
Tromsø employees and visitors.
note with Microsoft’s 50th-anniversary treats