Microsoft's PRAISE pairs junior engineers with CMU courses

Microsoft has described how its early-career engineering program PRAISE pairs selected employees with senior preceptors and Carnegie Mellon University coursework. The arrangement gives participants guidance on their Microsoft projects alongside online classes in software engineering and AI.

The program was already named in Microsoft’s September 17 account of its AI transformation. Accounts published October 15 by Microsoft and CMU explain its structure. They do not report how many engineers have participated or whether the training improves their work.

The big change

• What changed: Microsoft and CMU have described an internal training arrangement that combines senior engineers’ guidance on real projects with a university certificate curriculum for selected early-career employees.
• Why it matters: AI tools can produce code while newer engineers still need to learn how to assess it and make design decisions. PRAISE assigns that learning to experienced colleagues and formal courses, with time spent on the employee’s actual work.
• What to watch: CMU has named the current courses and planned spring courses. Evidence of the program’s value would require participant numbers and measured learning or engineering outcomes; neither institution has published those results for PRAISE.

What preceptors do

PRAISE stands for Preceptorship for AI-accelerated Software Engineering. Microsoft says its senior engineering preceptors work through questions and problems with junior engineers, explain their approach and advise them on where to focus. The aim, in Microsoft’s account, is to develop judgment about when to use AI and how to understand the resulting code and systems. The company describes testing assumptions and discussing unfamiliar changes with colleagues as part of that work.

CMU says the selected employees apply this guidance in their day-to-day jobs at Microsoft. Its October 15 report identifies one participant, software engineer Jace Watson, who works in Seattle and takes the classes while employed full time. His account establishes a participant’s experience, not a measured result for the program.

What the classes cover and who can take them

CMU says employees enrolled in the PRAISE certificate are taking Machine Learning in Production and Preceptorship in AI-Augmented Software Engineering I this semester. It lists DevOps: Engineering for Secure Development and Deployment and the second preceptorship course for spring. CMU says these courses can count toward a master’s degree in software engineering.

The university describes PRAISE as an opportunity for selected early-career Microsoft engineers to take online courses while receiving workplace mentorship. It says it hopes to add students and perhaps other industry partners later. Neither account offers an external enrollment route, selection criteria, a participant total or a program price.

The specific combination of project guidance and named courses gives engineering managers a concrete training design to examine. It does not establish that the design works better than other ways of training new engineers. Microsoft’s September post supplies no PRAISE outcome figures, and the October accounts describe the program and its ambitions without a comparison group or measured learning, retention or productivity results.

Sources & further reading

• Microsoft, “What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?”, October 15, 2026. Explains the preceptor role and Microsoft’s reasons for adding CMU coursework. It gives no PRAISE outcome measures.
• Carnegie Mellon University, “Microsoft and CMU Team Up To Train Early Career Software Engineers”, October 15, 2026. Names the certificate courses, eligibility scope and one participant; describes spring courses as planned.
• Microsoft, “What we’ve learned from Microsoft’s own AI transformation”, September 17, 2026. Mentions PRAISE before the more detailed October accounts, so October 15 is not treated as the program’s launch date.
• BIG CHANGE, “AI can write the code. Who will learn to fix it?”. Broader context on the learning question; it is a separate story from the Microsoft program reported here.