AI Software Engineer Intern

International Business Machines Corporation

Boston (MA)

Hybrid

USD 76,000 - 166,000

Part time

2 days ago

Be an early applicant

A complete application in a minute

Tailored resume and cover letter, ready to send.

Get past ATS filters

Job summary

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is seeking an AI Software Engineer Intern to help build AI-powered features for IBM Z, collaborating with senior engineers to turn LLM advances into practical software. You will integrate APIs and enterprise data, and ensure reliable, well-tested code that supports banking, payments, and global commerce.

The role emphasizes strong software fundamentals, Python expertise, and hands-on work with AI models; you will experiment, document, and iterate

Qualifications

Strong software engineering fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, software design and testing.
Proficiency in Python and experience building applications or services that integrate APIs.
Hands-on experience building an application or working prototype with LLMs, and ability to explain what you built and how you tested its behavior.
Systematic debugging mindset: investigate failures, test assumptions, and reason about how code, data, models, and systems interact.
Ability to translate problems into clear requirements, prompts, and testable acceptance criteria, and critique AI-generated code.
Familiarity with Git, clear technical communication, and quick learning to collaborate on a team.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and test AI-powered features that address real developer and client needs, with guidance from experienced engineers.
Integrate LLMs, APIs, and enterprise data into applications, exploring agent workflows and tool calling where suitable.
Write clear specifications and prompts, use AI development tools thoughtfully, and review and test the code produced.
Evaluate AI behavior with realistic test cases, measure quality and performance, and improve handling of errors and failures.
Debug across model interactions, application code, APIs, and underlying systems to identify root causes and build reliable solutions.
Collaborate through Git, code reviews, and technical discussions; document work and iterate on feedback.

Skills

Software fundamentals

Python

API integration

LLMs

Debugging

Clear communication

Git

Education

High School Diploma/GED

Bachelor's Degree

Job description

Your role and responsibilities

Build AI for the systems the world relies on. At IBM Z, our technology supports the transactionsand data behind banking, payments, and global commerce. We are bringing AI into thatfoundation to help developers build faster, simplify complex operations, and solve problemswhere reliability, security, and performance matter.

As an AI Software Engineer Intern, you will work alongside experienced engineers to turnadvances in large language models into useful software. Depending on your team, you couldbuild an agent that helps diagnose system issues, connect AI to enterprise data and tools, orcreate a simpler way for developers to work with complex systems. Bring your ideas,experiment, and help take a feature from prototype through testing and refinement.

What You’ll Do:

Design, build, and test AI-powered features that address real developer and clientneeds, with guidance from experienced engineers.
Integrate LLMs, APIs, and enterprise data into applications, exploring agent workflows,tool calling, and retrieval where they fit the problem.
Write clear specifications and effective prompts, use AI development tools thoughtfully,and review and test the code they produce.
Evaluate AI behavior with realistic test cases, measure quality and performance, andimprove how applications handle incorrect outputs and failures.
Debug across model interactions, application code, APIs, and underlying systems tounderstand root causes and build reliable solutions.
Collaborate through Git, code reviews, and technical discussions; document your workand iterate on feedback.

Program Dates:

Semester System: May 24, 2027 – August 13, 2027

Candidates must be available to participate for the full duration of the internship correspondingto their academic schedule.

Location Flexibility: By applying to this requisition, you acknowledge and agree to be considered for any of the listed locations associated with this position and are willing to work at the location where you are ultimately assigned.

Required education

High School Diploma/GED

Preferred education

Bachelor's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

Strong software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, software design, and testing.
Proficiency in Python and experience building applications or services that integrateAPIs.
Hands-on experience building an application or working prototype with LLMs. You canexplain what you built, how you integrated the model, and how you tested its behavior.Experience may come from personal, academic, open-source, or internship projects.
A systematic debugging mindset: you can investigate failures, test assumptions, andreason about how application code, data, models, and underlying systems interact.
Ability to translate a problem into clear requirements, prompts, and testable acceptancecriteria, and critically evaluate AI-generated code and responses.
Familiarity with Git, clear technical communication, and the ability to learn quickly andcollaborate on a team.

Preferred technical and professional experience

Experience in one or more of the following areas is a plus. You do not need experience with every technology listed.
AI agents and tool or function calling; retrieval-augmented generation (RAG),embeddings, vector databases, or Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Independent AI projects, open-source contributions, or experiments beyond assignedcoursework that demonstrate initiative and thoughtful engineering decisions.
Operating system concepts such as concurrency, multithreading, and memorymanagement; relational databases and SQL.
Cloud and container technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, or OpenShift;observability, search, or real-time data processing tools such as OpenSearch or Kafka.
AI evaluation, anomaly detection, or experience measuring and improving modelaccuracy, latency, and reliability.

We are especially interested in what you have built and learned. Where available, include a project link, repository, demo, or a brief description of your contribution and the technical challenges you worked through.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence—from machine learning to generative AI—to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM’s AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM’s hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments—a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

Supplemental 1 employees may be eligible for up to 8 paid holidays, minimum of 56 hours paid sick time and the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan. IBM offers paid family medical leave and disability benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

City / Township / Village

POUGHKEEPSIE, DURHAM, San Jose, New York

State / Province

New York, North Carolina, California

Country

United States

Work arrangement

Hybrid

Area of work

Software Engineering

Employment type

Co-Op (Fixed Term)