📍
New York, NY

2026 Intern: Software Engineer – AI-powered Automation

Internship
Technology & Digital
Software engineering
Posted:
December 28, 2025

IBM

Global technology company
72.1
Palpable Score
Apply >view company >

Multiple locations: Yorktown Heights, San Jose, Cambridge, Albany, New York, Massachusetts, California, United States

Your role and responsibilities

At IBM Research, we invent things that matter to the world.  Today, we are pioneering the most promising and disruptive technologies that will transform industries and society, including the future of AI, Blockchain and Quantum Computing.  We are driven to discover.  With more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs located across six continents, IBM Research is one of the world’s largest and most influential corporate research labs.  Artificial intelligence is having a profound impact on all aspects of our lives and is transforming how work is conducted in every industry.

Today, AI systems are enabling businesses to personalize services, converse with customers, automate operations, optimize workflows, predict demand, and recommend next best actions.  A common thread to our ambitious AI and watsonx Research agenda is to understand how AI systems and algorithms can be designed responsibly and produce effective outcomes to their enterprise users.  In your role as a Research Software Engineer, you will interact with the brightest minds in AI and will help transform AI research ideas into scalable, robust systems that solve real-world problems and help us advance our research and development agenda on artificial intelligence including areas such Natural Language Processing, Distributed (Edge) AI, Trusted AI, Scalable Data Engineering, AI for Business and IT Automation, AI Applications, AI Security, AI Hardware, Automated AI, Conversational AI and API Composition and Orchestration.  

You have a proven interest and experience in implementing innovative software solutions and applications. In your role as AI Research Software Engineer,you will work in close collaboration with other researchers and engineers to create, maintain and support world-class applications and/or infrastructure in support of our research and development agenda on artificial intelligence. This may also include any research related to your project. You will also deliver production level-code to support the commercialization of the resulting assets. Demonstrated communication skills are essential.

Required education

High School Diploma/GED

Preferred education

Bachelor's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

 • Programming skills in Python, Java, C++/C etc.

  • Backend storage technologies such as SQL and Non-SQL databases (Postgres, MongoDB, Cloudant, ElasticSearch etc.)

  • Experience in Kubernetes CI/CD tools and operators, IBM Cloud and machine learning training pipelines

  • Software engineering practices including agile techniques

  • System building/debugging/testing skills

Preferred technical and professional experience

  • Machine learning techniques and machine learning toolkits such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, scikit-learn etc. including programming on GPUs

  • Experience in web application development and frameworks including HTML, CSS and JavaScript, JQuery, React, Flask, Node.js etc.

  • Qualitative and quantitative user research and user-centric design

  • Solving analytical problems using rigorous and quantitative approaches

  • Analyzing large scale data from a variety of sources

  • Previous experience publishing scientific results, e.g. atNeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, IJCAI, ACL, AAAI, KDD, CHI, IUI, CSCW or similar

  • Knowledge in one or more of the following topics: large language models, finetuning algorithms (e.g., LoRA, DPO, etc.), reinforcement learning, model architectures (e.g., transformers, state-space models, etc.), LLM-based agents, agentic workflows, multi-agent systems, RAG, agent frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, CrewAI, etc.), time series data

About the company

IBM

Company overview
IBM is a global technology company that sells software, consulting services, and infrastructure products to large organisations. IBM’s current focus areas include hybrid cloud, AI, cybersecurity, automation, and enterprise IT modernisation. IBM also operates a large consulting arm that delivers transformation programmes for clients across industries. IBM works with customers worldwide, from governments and banks to retailers and manufacturers.

Locations and presence

IBM operates globally with offices and client sites across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and other regions, with headquarters in Armonk, New York. Working patterns vary by role and business unit, and public reporting shows IBM has required in-office or client-site presence (often at least three days a week) for some groups such as US managers and parts of the sales organisation.

Palpable Score

72.1
/ 100
IBM is a strong early-career option for people who want multiple entry doors, because IBM runs internships, apprenticeships, and named entry-level programmes alongside “entry level” job hiring. IBM is also more transparent than many large tech employers about the steps in the hiring process and how assessments work, including accommodations and asking for feedback. The main constraints are uneven pay transparency by country and role, plus limited public outcome data (conversion rates, promotion timelines) for early-career cohorts.
view full company profile >

Related jobs

📍
Needham, MA
SharkNinja
Summer 2026: Electrical Design Engineering Intern, Advanced Development (May to August)
January 26, 2026
view job >
📍
Needham, MA
SharkNinja
Associate Program Manager - Kitchenware
January 26, 2026
view job >
📍
Needham, MA
SharkNinja
Spring 2026: Community Manager Co-op, Social Media & Online Engagement (February to July)
January 26, 2026
view job >
📍
Needham, MA
SharkNinja
Facility Operations Lead
January 26, 2026
view job >