[wwwigham]

This tbh. If the compiler the Microsoft team maintains is open source (which most of the ones people have heard of are), having involvement in that open source community would probably also be a plus - it helps show the practical part of practical compiler development.

Anyways, many public-facing compilers (C++, C#, VB, F#, the .NET runtime as a whole, TypeScript) are in the devdiv org - if you look up Julia Liuson in the org chart and explore down from there, you can probably get a good idea of who you most want to grab coffee with (or whatever the remote work equivalent of that is now).

Outside of devdiv, there's also some esoteric c++ compilers, PowerShell, and SQL compilers housed in the windows and azure orgs, plus iirc there are some people who work on v8 fulltime around the edge team now, too.

Point is that you've got much more direct access to those teams and opportunities than most people already, being only an internal transfer away - hopefully you can make use of that.

[pm215]

Great point -- if you work for a large company, an internal transfer can be a great way to switch career specialties. Because the company already knows you well they're often willing to consider you even if you don't yet have much in-specialty experience in the new role. I got my start doing full time open source work by making an internal transfer (not in MS, different firm).

[bmitc]

It is my understanding that the language teams of C# and especially F# are actually quite small, and I imagine competitive. I would wager that there's more compiler work to be done in Microsoft Research. This is a hunch based on things I have read.

[eru]

Yes, but can't hurt to reach out in any case.

[rl3]

Don't forget Microsoft Research. I mean, OP has been working on their PhD for four years now (albeit part-time).