Computer Science Phd Research Intern Jobs in Tustin, CA

We help the world run better
At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging - but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed. 

About the SAP Internship Experience Program

The SAP Internship Experience Program is SAP's global, strategic, paid internship program that provides university students with opportunities to find purpose in their careers.

Three reasons to intern at SAP

Culture of collaboration: Meet with mentors, make new friends across the globe, and create a thriving personal network.

Project-driven experience: gain cross-functional skills from our virtual and in-person learning sessions, diverse subject matter experts, and project deliverables. 

Gain visibility: with the SAP Internship Experience Program in your title, you'll have a global network of SAP leaders, entrepreneurs, and career development opportunities at your fingertips.

What you'll do:

Position title: SAP iXp Intern - Business AI Research

Location: Newport Beach, CA 

Expected Start Date: June 2026

Contract Duration: 3 months (Summer 2026)

Work hours: Full-time - 40 hours per week

We are looking for a highly motivated intern to join our Generative AI team and help advance the development of domain-specific foundation models for SAP applications. You will work closely with researchers and engineers on techniques such as continuous pre-training (CPT) and instruction and supervised fine-tuning (SFT) to adapt large language models to enterprise and SAP-specific tasks.

This is a hands-on, technical role where you will contribute to real model development efforts, experiments, and tooling that directly impact how AI systems are built and deployed across SAP products.

Projects may include:

• Designing and running experiments for continuous pre-training on domain-specific corpora
• Developing datasets and pipelines for instruction tuning and supervised fine-tuning
• Exploring methods for synthetic data generation to improve data coverage and quality
• Building and evaluating benchmarks for SAP-relevant tasks (e.g., reasoning over structured data, API understanding, technical documentation)
• Analyzing model performance and presenting findings to the team
• Prototyping tooling to improve data processing, evaluation, or training workflows

What you bring:

We're looking for someone who takes initiative, perseveres, and stays curious. You like to work on meaningful innovative projects and are energized by lifelong learning.

• Education: Bachelor's and/or Master's in Computer Science at a top STEM university
• Eligibility: Must be currently enrolled, or recently graduated (start date must be within 6 months of graduation date) from a coding academy/bootcamp, apprenticeship, associate, bachelor's, master's, or JD/PhD program
• Experience as a PhD graduate student in software and modern AI technology
• Remarkable academic track record and experience
• Experience with data science methodology
• A data-driven, systemic thinking, and continuous improvement mindset 
• Ability to solve complex topics and drive results across the board areas at SAP 
• Self-driven and proactive mindset
• Excellent team player and collaboration skills in both industry and academia
• Excellent communication skills with strong empathy
• Fluency in the English language (both written and spoken) 

Meet your team:

The ABAP Foundation Model team is pioneering AI innovations within the SAP ecosystem. It is an integral part of the Generative AI foundation within Business AI at SAP. We focus on creating and refining our own Foundation Models using SAP Business Data, pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI in business applications. By joining our team, you'll be an integral part of shaping the future of AI at SAP and driving significant advancements in the field.

Bring out your best
SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.  
We win with inclusion
SAP's culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone - regardless of background - feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.
SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.
For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability.

Compensation Range Transparency: SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP's commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 26-47 USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process.

Please note that any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.
Requisition ID: 444003  | Work Area: Information Technology  | Expected Travel: 0 - 10%  | Career Status: Student  | Employment Type: Limited Full Time   | Additional Locations:  #LI-Hybrid