Microsoft and CMU launch PRAISE certificate program for AI-era software engineers

A combined degree and apprenticeship

Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University have launched a joint program to train early-career software engineers for development work shaped by AI. The Preceptorship for AI-accelerated Software Engineering, or PRAISE, lets selected Microsoft employees take online courses from CMU's Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science while continuing in their jobs at the company, according to CMU's announcement.

The program mixes formal education with structured mentorship. Early-career engineers, called preceptees, are matched with senior Microsoft engineers known as preceptors, who coach them on AI-accelerated software engineering practices and how to apply them to daily work. Participants also enroll in School of Computer Science classes covering software engineering and AI.

CMU profiled one participant, Jace Watson, a Microsoft software engineer based in Seattle who takes the Pittsburgh university's classes alongside his full-time job. Watson said AI tools became part of his routine once he joined Microsoft but had not featured heavily in his undergraduate education, which is why he sought out the extra training.

Rooted in a gap between junior and senior engineers

The idea traces back to an October 2025 visit to CMU by Mark Russinovich, a CMU alumnus who serves as chief technology officer, deputy chief information security officer and technical fellow for Microsoft Azure. According to CMU, Russinovich observed that AI tools help senior engineers, but junior engineers do not enjoy the same level of benefit.

"AI changes the work, but it doesn't eliminate the need for junior engineers or for human judgment and accountability," Russinovich said in CMU's announcement. He described PRAISE as a model that Microsoft hopes others in industry and academia will adopt.

CMU faculty echoed that diagnosis. Michael Hilton, a teaching professor in CMU's Software and Societal Systems Department, noted that early-career engineers traditionally built up their expertise through tasks that AI tools now handle routinely.

What students actually take

Microsoft employees currently in the certificate program are enrolled in two courses, CMU reports: Machine Learning in Production and the first half of a sequence called Preceptorship in AI-Augmented Software Engineering. The classes cover how to incorporate machine learning into the software students write and how to use AI tools while writing it.

In the spring semester, students move on to DevOps: Engineering for Secure Development and Deployment and the second half of the preceptorship sequence. Credits from the courses can be applied toward a master's degree in software engineering at CMU, giving participants a path to further study.

Microsoft, in its own announcement of the partnership, framed the judgment about when to use AI as something that requires ongoing education, with formal curricula complementing the preceptor's guidance on how to build and deliver with confidence.

Expansion plans

CMU says it hopes to grow the program by adding more students to the certificate and, eventually, opening it to other industry partners. Jonathan Aldrich, a professor in the Software and Societal Systems Department who directs the PRAISE certificate program, said the program could become a template for rapidly leveling up new developers across an industry confronting upheaval from AI in software development.

SCS Dean Martial Hebert positioned the partnership as a way to extend the school's computer science teaching to people outside the traditional education system who are navigating a rapidly changing landscape.

Why it matters

The premise behind PRAISE — that AI is absorbing the routine, skill-building work entry-level engineers once learned on the job — is widely shared across the industry. If models take over those tasks, employers need a deliberate replacement for the apprenticeship that junior roles used to provide. PRAISE is a prominent experiment in building that replacement: pairing academic coursework on AI-augmented engineering with senior-level mentorship inside a major employer, and granting credentials that ladder into a graduate degree. Both Microsoft and CMU say they want the model copied, so its outcomes — whether preceptees genuinely develop the judgment that senior engineers rely on — will be watched closely by other universities and companies weighing similar programs.