Software Engineer Intern

Developmental

Career Explorer · Engineering · Backend Engineering

IC0 · Intern / ApprenticeIndividual contributorIntern / Apprentice

Optional developmental level

What the role involves

Autonomy: Learns under close guidance
Scope: Scoped tasks
Time horizon: Days to weeks
Expertise and judgement: Foundational awareness; asks questions; follows established procedures
Expected impact: Delivers learning milestones and small supervised outputs

Expected skills (22)

Grouped as human, professional and technical. Target proficiency uses the P1–P5 scale, and each row says what that level means for that particular skill.

Human (10)

Skill	Importance	Target	What that level looks like
Accountability Personal Effectiveness	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Active listening Communication & Influence	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Collaboration Collaboration & Leadership	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Critical thinking Thinking & Judgment	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Customer empathy Personal Effectiveness	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Learning agility Thinking & Judgment	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Ownership Personal Effectiveness	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Problem solving Thinking & Judgment	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Verbal communication Communication & Influence	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Written communication Communication & Influence	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.

Professional (1)

Skill	Importance	Target	What that level looks like
Business acumen Business & Strategy	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.

Technical (11)

Skill	Importance	Target	What that level looks like
Programming fundamentals Software Engineering	Core	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Backend development Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
CI/CD Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Code review Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Debugging Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Reliability engineering Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Secure coding Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Software architecture Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Software design patterns Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Unit testing Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.
Version control Software Engineering	Supporting	P1	Explains basic concepts and performs simple tasks with guidance.

Career ladder

Reached from

This is the family's entry point.

Next steps

Associate Software EngineerIC1IC promotion
Move from supervised learning to reliable contribution on clearly scoped work; demonstrate fundamentals, quality, dependability and learning velocity.

Possible when people-management capability and an organizational need exist; no automatic IC-to-M equivalence.

What changes to advance

Move from supervised learning to reliable contribution on clearly scoped work; demonstrate fundamentals, quality, dependability and learning velocity.

Source: SFIA; Microsoft Careers; ONET; GitLab · JF0021-IC0