Software Developer Intern 2027 - Cambridge

IBM; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 34,000 - 62,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid internship

Job summary

IBM Software is seeking Software Developer Interns to join our engineering team. You will work with IBM engineers on AI agent systems, observability, evaluation, benchmarking, and automation.

Contribute to SDKs, APIs, or tooling used to analyze and improve AI agents in cloud-native environments. This internship emphasizes strong software fundamentals, curiosity, and learning, with hands-on experience in modern cloud-native tech and production software across front-end, back-end, and

Qualifications

• Coursework or project experience in software development using at least one programming language.
• Familiarity with data structures, algorithms, APIs, debugging and software design.
• Experience using Git or another version-control system.
• Familiarity with frontend, backend, distributed systems or cloud app development.
• Interest in AI systems, large language models, AI agents, cloud computing or distributed systems.
• Strong analytical thinking, problem solving and communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate, learn new technologies quickly, and work in a fast-moving engineering environment.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and debug SDKs, APIs, backend services, developer tools, and user interfaces for AI applications.
• Build capabilities to observe, evaluate, benchmark, debug, and optimize AI agents.
• Work with AI agents and large language models to analyze behavior, including tool usage, responses, and latency.
• Develop services and APIs to collect and process telemetry and evaluation data.
• Contribute to frameworks and SDKs integrating with agent runtimes and AI frameworks.
• Help build automated evaluation and testing systems for AI agents and benchmarks.
• Explore techniques to improve agent quality through prompt optimization and model selection.
• Work across front-end, back-end, and infrastructure components as needed.
• Use Docker, Kubernetes, REST APIs, and observability frameworks in production software.
• Participate in code reviews, Agile development, and collaborate with engineers, researchers and designers.

Skills

Software fundamentals

Git

Problem solving

Collaborative skills

Education

High School Diploma/GED

Bachelor’s Degree

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

REST APIs

Distributed systems

Git

LangGraph

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Job description

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Your role and responsibilities

We are looking for Software Developer Interns to join our engineering team, where we build technology to help developers understand, evaluate, optimize, and operate AI agents at scale. As an intern, you will work alongside experienced IBM engineers on systems that support the development and operation of agentic AI applications, including observability, evaluation, benchmarking, optimization, and automation. You may contribute to SDKs, APIs, distributed services, developer tooling, or user experiences used to analyze and improve AI agents.

This role is designed for students who are passionate about software engineering and interested in the rapidly evolving intersection of AI, cloud infrastructure, and developer platforms. You do not need prior experience building AI agents. We are looking for strong software fundamentals, curiosity, and a willingness to learn. You will gain hands‑on experience building production software, working with modern cloud‑native technologies, and solving engineering problems associated with running AI systems in real‑world environments.

What You’ll Do

• Design, develop, test, and debug SDKs, APIs, backend services, developer tools, and user interfaces for AI applications.
• Build capabilities that help developers observe, evaluate, benchmark, debug, and optimize AI agents.
• Work with AI agents and large language models to analyze agent behavior, including tool usage, responses, execution traces, latency, quality, and cost.
• Develop services and APIs that collect and process telemetry and evaluation data from AI applications.
• Contribute to frameworks and SDKs that integrate with different agent runtimes, models, and AI development frameworks.
• Help build automated evaluation and testing systems for AI agents, including test‑case generation, behavioral metrics, and performance benchmarking.
• Explore techniques for improving agent quality and efficiency through prompt optimization, model selection, tool optimization, and automated experimentation.
• Work across front‑end, back‑end, and infrastructure components depending on project needs.
• Work with cloud-native technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, REST APIs, distributed services, and observability frameworks.
• Use Git, CI/CD systems, and modern software‑development tools to build and deliver production‑quality software.
• Participate in code reviews, technical design discussions, Agile development, and collaboration with engineers, researchers, product managers, and designers.
• Explore emerging technologies in agentic AI, LLM evaluation, observability, optimization, automation, and cloud-native AI infrastructure.

Program Dates: Internship start dates vary based on your academic calendar.

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

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

Required education

High School Diploma/GED

Preferred education

Bachelor’s Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

Transferable skills and experience from coursework, internships, research, personal projects, or open-source contributions are encouraged.

• Coursework or project experience in software development using at least one programming language.
• Familiarity with core computer science concepts such as data structures, algorithms, APIs, debugging, and software design.
• Experience using Git or another version‑control system.
• Familiarity with front‑end, back‑end, distributed systems, or cloud application development.
• Interest in AI systems, large language models, AI agents, cloud computing, developer tooling, or distributed systems.
• Strong analytical thinking, problem‑solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively, learn new technologies quickly, and work in a fast‑moving engineering environment.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience experimenting with large language models, AI agents, or generative AI applications.
• Familiarity with agent or LLM development frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar technologies.
• Exposure to concepts such as LLM evaluation, tracing, observability, benchmarking, prompt engineering, or model optimization.
• Experience developing REST APIs, backend services, or distributed applications.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as IBM Cloud, AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, or other container and orchestration technologies.
• Familiarity with observability technologies such as OpenTelemetry, tracing, metrics, or logging systems.
• Experience with relational or NoSQL databases.
• Exposure to CI/CD pipelines and software automation.
• Personal, research, or open-source projects demonstrating creativity, technical curiosity, and initiative.

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.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full‑time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job‑related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro‑rated for those who start working during the calendar year.