Investment Risk Management Internship, Fall 2026

Northwestern Mutual; Milwaukee (WI); On-site; USD 22,000 - 41,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Professional development workshops

Senior leadership Q&A

Networking events

Job summary

Northwestern Mutual Internship in Milwaukee,wi seeks a highly analytical student to work on recession forecasting with ML in Python. You'll collaborate with the Investment Risk Management team on data preprocessing, model development, and reporting.

Open to Master's/Ph.D. candidates in CS/DS/Engineering/Math/Economics and related fields; hands-on learning and exposure to real-world financial forecasting are offered with onsite work starting Oct 2026.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a Master's/Ph.D. program in CS, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Economics, or a related field.
• Strong Python programming and ML library experience (scikit-learn, LightGBM).
• Experience with data preprocessing, feature engineering, and forecasting models.
• Excellent communication and ability to work in a team.

Responsibilities

• Model development to revisit and enhance recession forecasting models.
• Data preprocessing, feature engineering, and exploratory data analysis to support model development.
• Write efficient Python code to implement and optimize ML models.
• Evaluate and validate model robustness and reliability.
• Create reports and dashboards using Power BI and other tools.

Skills

Python programming

Data analysis

Communication skills

Team collaboration

Education

Master's/Ph.D. program in CS/Data Science/Engineering/Math/Economics or related field

Tools

Power BI

SQL

scikit-learn

LightGBM

Job description

Internship Candidates

Internship candidates can expect a fulltime onsite internship program, running from Oct 2026. Carefully selected from universities across the country, our interns bring distinctive ideas and perspectives to our organization. Our employees are passionate about building our emerging talent and future leaders. After application and initial screening conversation, interns are aligned interview and be hired to a specific team at NM based on their abilities and interests, providing exposure to real-world business perspectives through hands‑on learning and meaningful work. In addition to their day‑to‑day tasks, interns participate in professional development workshops, senior leadership Q&A's, volunteer initiatives, networking/social events, and more!

The Investment Risk Management (IRM) Team

The IRM team plays a fundamental role in ensuring that Northwestern Mutual stays financially sound, allowing the company to fulfill its promises to our policy‑owners when they need us the most. To do so our members collaborate with portfolio managers and the investment strategy group to develop processes and models that address the evaluation, control, management and mitigation of investment risks, including credit, market and liquidity risk. We have an exciting opportunity for a highly analytical and upbeat undergraduate student to have an impact on our investment decisions, who is also interested in learning more about how we manage investment risk, report quantitative investment analytics, and develop financial models. Are you a self‑motivated and well‑organized student with a passion for AI and machine learning? Do you have experience with Python and are eager to apply your skills to real‑world projects? We are looking for a dedicated and enthusiastic student to join our team and work on revisiting and building out our recession forecasting model using machine learning techniques in Python. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain hands‑on experience, enhance your skills, and contribute to cutting‑edge financial forecasting projects.

Key Responsibilities

• Model Development: Revisit and enhance existing recession forecasting model to improve performance and accuracy.
• Data Analysis: Perform data preprocessing, feature engineering, and exploratory data analysis to support model development.
• Implementation: Write efficient and clean Python code to implement and optimize machine learning models.
• Evaluation: Conduct thorough testing and validation of models to ensure robustness and reliability.
• Documentation: Maintain comprehensive documentation of methodologies, code, and results.
• Reporting: Creating reports and dashboards using tools like Power BI.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a Master's/Ph.D. program in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Economics, or a related field.

Technical Skills

• Proficiency in Python programming.
• Experience with machine learning libraries such as scikit‑learn and LightGBM.
• Strong understanding of machine learning predictive models and evaluation of them.
• Data Analysis and Reporting using SQL and Power BI.

Analytical Skills

• Ability to analyze and interpret complex datasets.

Communication

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Attributes

• Self‑motivated, well‑organized, and able to work independently as well as part of a team.

Who we are

Northwestern Mutual has been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for over 160 years through a distinctive planning approach that integrates risk management with wealth accumulation, preservation, and distribution. With more than $290 billion in assets, $30 billion in revenues and more than $1.9 trillion worth of life insurance protection in force, Northwestern Mutual delivers financial security to more than 4.6 million clients. People are the power behind Northwestern Mutual, and diversity makes us better. We are committed to reflecting and serving the marketplace. We do so by attracting and improving the engagement of those who bring their outstanding perspectives, ideas, and beliefs. At Northwestern Mutual, people matter. And you’ll be working for a company that’s consistently voted among the “most admired” in the nation. We invite you to explore your career interests with us.

Compensation Range

• Pay Range - Start: $16.50
• Pay Range - End: $30.00

We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. Internship salaries are determined based on academic tenure and major. The standard pay structure is listed. Build a strong career foundation with a best‑in‑class company that puts our clients’ interests at the center of all we do.

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives. At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust. That our lives and our work matter. These beliefs launched our company over 160 years ago. Today, they’re just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual.

What started in Milwaukee, WI has grown into 7,000+ home office professionals split across 3 campuses: New York City, Franklin and downtown Milwaukee (HQ) - each one bringing with it its own unique talent and culture. In a company with such a long and storied history, this may be the most exciting and important time to be a part of Northwestern Mutual as we are growing our digital and tech capabilities and are always on the lookout for bright, tech‑savvy candidates.

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.