Current PhD AI Engineering Internship Program Summer 2027

Capital One; McLean (VA); Hybrid; USD 165,000 - 187,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is offering a paid AI Engineering Internship in McLean, VA for a 12-week summer program. Interns work in a hybrid model and are evaluated for a full‑time position with their team. A future AI Engineering role may sponsor immigration if eligible.

The role involves prototyping AI-native products, building scalable AI infrastructure, and collaborating with research scientists and engineers to achieve real‑world impact.

Qualifications

• Pursuing PhD in CS/AI/EE/CE with degree by Aug 2029 or earlier.
• At least 1 year related AI/ML algorithm development experience.
• At least 1 year programming in Python/Go/Scala/Java.

Responsibilities

• Prototype and ship AI-native products for millions of customers.
• Research and productionalize high‑impact AI systems and pipelines.
• Design infrastructure for AI stacks including training and inference.

Skills

AI/ML algorithms

Python/Go/Scala/Java programming

Cross-team collaboration

Education

PhD in Computer Science/AI/EE/CE (by Aug 2029)

Tools

AWS

PyTorch

LangChain

LangGraph

LlamaIndex

Autogen

Windsurf

Claude Code

Job description

Key Role Details

This is a full-time paid internship program spanning twelve weeks from June through August.

• Participation in the internship requires that you are located in the continental United States with in-person attendance at your assigned location, in accordance with Capital One’s hybrid working model, for the duration of the program.
• Interns will be evaluated for a full-time position with their team and will work with their manager on identifying a start date upon graduation .

This is a paid internship. This is a limited-time internship position, and Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position. However, a full-time AI Engineering role, for which you may be considered upon completion of the internship (subject to business need, market conditions, and other factors) is eligible for employer immigration sponsorship.

Basic Qualifications

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining a PhD in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained by August 2029 or earlier.
• Must be continuing in the same course of study of the most recent degree following completion of the internship period.
• At least 1 year of experience or academic work developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies.
• At least 1 year of experience or academic work programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience or academic work with deploying AI/ML systems on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
• Experience or academic work in developing and applying state-of-the-art techniques for optimizing AI/ML training or inference pipelines, including distributed GPU computational frameworks.
• Experience or academic work with AI/ML domains and systems (e.g., LLM Inference, Search and Retrieval, NLP, Computer Vision, Guardrails, Memory).
• Familiarity with Agentic Frameworks (Eg: LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Autogen, MCP/A2A, frontier-labs agent SDKs).

AI Engineering Internship

At Capital One, we are creating responsible and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been an industry leader in using machine learning to create real-time, personalized customer experiences. Our investments in technology infrastructure and world-class talent — along with our deep experience in machine learning — position us to be at the forefront of enterprises leveraging AI. From informing customers about unusual charges to answering their questions in real time, our applications of AI & ML are bringing deep personalization and simplicity to banking. We are committed to continuing to build world‑class applied science and engineering teams to deliver our industry leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.

Team Description:

Join the AI Engineering Internship Program for a specialized summer experience that directly contributes to delivering industry‑leading agentic capabilities and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. As part of this team, you'll help build Agentic AI applications and platform capabilities that power customer‑facing experiences with GenAI workflows, industry‑leading infrastructure, and internal agentic coding tools. You'll work on the Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team, which is tasked with advancing the state‑of-the‑art in AI science and engineering. You’ll use valuable contributions from day one by building AI systems and shaping ideas key to delivering AI‑native experiences and products for our 100mm+ customers.

In this role, you will:

• Partner deeply with a cross‑functional team of research scientists, PMs, and engineers to prototype and ship AI-native products that reach millions of customers.
• Research, prototype, and productionalize high‑impact AI systems, including multimodal search, intelligent document processing, and autonomous agentic workflows that push the boundaries of current industry benchmarks.
• Design and optimize the critical infrastructure of our AI stack—from fine‑tuning pre‑training pipelines and reinforcement learning to implementing inference optimization, robust guardrails and sophisticated evaluation frameworks.
• Leverage a broad stack of technologies including AWS Ultraclusters, PyTorch, and leading‑edge agentic frameworks. You’ll be empowered with top‑tier developer tools like Claude Code and Windsurf to accelerate the path from concept to code.
• Architect agentic workflows that go beyond simple chat—enabling AI systems to autonomously navigate tools, orchestrate multi‑step reasoning, and integrate seamlessly with complex microservice environments.

The Ideal Candidate:

• You are curious, love to build systems, and also share our passion to do it the right way. You want to work on problems that have not been attempted before and will help change banking for good.
• You move fluently from reading a research paper to implementing it in production. You have a deep, intuitive grasp of the latest advances in agentic workflows and multimodal models.
• You adapt quickly and thrive on bringing clarity to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and digging deep to uncover the root of problems and can articulate your findings concisely with clarity.
• You are deeply Technical. You possess a strong foundation in engineering and mathematics, and your expertise in hardware, software, and AI enable you to see and exploit optimization opportunities that others miss.
• You excel at decomposing complex problems. You possess the judgment to decide where AI adds value and how to orchestrate AI workflows incorporating time‑tested systems design principles, integrating both into a unified whole.

The minimum and maximum full‑time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part‑time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

McLean, VA: $176,000 - $176,000 for AI Engineer PhD Intern

New York, NY: $192,000 - $192,000 for AI Engineer PhD Intern

San Jose, CA: $192,000 - $192,000 for AI Engineer PhD Intern

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter.

• Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well‑being.

Learn more at the Capital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part‑time status, exempt or non‑exempt status, and management level.

This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non‑discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug‑free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23‑A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at [e-mail]. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to [e-mail]

Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).