By: Michelle Feder

Summer interns at Microsoft make a big impact and get experience that fires up their resumes for when they go pro.  In a jam-packed summer of geekdom and summer fun, an intern can work on a product launch and see first-hand what it takes to get a much-watched new product up and running.  Read on to see how an internship  gets you poised to join the workforce—while you’re building a resume with red-hot experience for future tech jobs.

Breaking ground at Windows 8

Gbenga (Ben) got a front-row seat and hands-on experience amid the hush-hush buzz of the product launch of Windows 8.  Under the leadership of Eric Bahna on the Windows Core group, Ben worked as a Program Manager for the “attract loop” that demonstrates Windows 8 in retail stores worldwide.

Along the way, Ben got exposure to some major Microsoft brains: Windows Experience Corporate Vice President Julie Larson-Green, as well as 15-year Microsoft veteran Iain McDonald (now Director of Program Management for Windows Core). With this much talent in one place, the atmosphere crackled.

Ben is now a senior at Rice University. He accepted his offer to return to Windows full-time. And talk about impact: Ben’s demo is now live at Best Buy, Microsoft Stores and other retail outlets around the world. It’s showing millions of people what’s new and forward-thinking about Windows 8.

Supporting the grand opening of Windows Store

The doors of Windows Store opened in October. Developers have been welcome to build the next great apps, and customers are psyched to start using them.  But as Windows Store test lead Shweta Jagpal explains, when you’re running a service in production, effective service monitoring is key. If the service is slow, unreliable or not available, she says, the customer experience is…disappointing, to say the least. “Without solid end-to-end monitoring,” Jagpal adds, “there is no easy way to evaluate in real-time how well we are doing.”

Enter Ankit, who has now graduated from the University of Florida with a computer science degree. During his internship, Ankit made an important contribution to the Windows Web Services team.  “With his project, setting up Synthetic monitors for Windows Store, Ankit established a solid foundation for our team,” says Jagpal, his manager. “These monitors will run in the data center zone in production and keep us current with the health of our core scenarios.”

The project gave Ankit hands-on experience with the entire SDLC (software development life cycle)– planning, designing, implementation, testing and deployment. Along the way, he worked closely with developer, test and operations disciplines to launch Windows Store.

Interested in an internship? (We know you’re out there.) Here’s how to apply.

Want an uncensored look inside the intern experience? Discover the stories behind the scenes: My Intern Life. International? Check out My Intern Life UK.