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Open Source Internship Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Prime Intellect

Internship

San Francisco, CA · On-site

We are building open frontier AI: open-source models trained end to end for long-horizon tasks like ... We're looking for exceptional interns who've already built real systems, contributed to open-source ...

RocketRide Inc.

AI Developer Intern

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$22.75 - $29.75/hr

This is a meaningful role with real impact: the code you write will commit to open source and ... Strong interns have the opportunity to convert to a full-time role.

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Open Source Internship information

What are the typical responsibilities of an open source intern and how do they collaborate with established contributors?

As an Open Source Intern, your daily tasks often include contributing code, reviewing pull requests, writing documentation, and participating in issue discussions. You will frequently collaborate with established contributors and maintainers through code reviews, chat platforms, and virtual meetings. This collaborative environment offers valuable learning opportunities and exposure to best practices in software development. Additionally, you may be assigned a mentor to guide you through project workflows, helping you build both technical and communication skills relevant to open-source communities.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as an open source intern, and why are they important?

To thrive as an Open Source Intern, you need a solid understanding of programming languages (such as Python, JavaScript, or C++) and version control systems like Git, often supported by ongoing studies in computer science or related fields. Familiarity with collaborative platforms like GitHub, issue tracking tools, and participation in open source projects are typically expected. Strong communication, self-motivation, and a willingness to learn make candidates stand out, as open source work is highly collaborative and community-driven. These skills and qualities are important because they enable effective contribution to projects, foster teamwork, and help interns adapt quickly to new technologies and workflows.

What is an open source internship?

An Open Source Internship is a program where students or early-career professionals gain hands-on experience by contributing to open source software projects. These internships are often sponsored by tech organizations, non-profits, or companies, and allow interns to work with experienced developers from around the world. Interns typically learn software development, collaboration, and version control skills, while also making meaningful contributions to real-world projects. Open source internships can be remote or in-person and are a great way to build a professional network and portfolio.

What is the difference between Open Source Internship vs Open Source Developer?

AspectOpen Source InternshipOpen Source Developer
Required CredentialsTypically students or entry-level with basic coding skillsProven experience, often with a portfolio of contributions
Work EnvironmentCollaborative, often part-time or temporaryFull-time or freelance, ongoing contributions
Employer & Industry UsageOrganizations, universities, open source communitiesTech companies, open source projects, startups

Open Source Internships are designed for students or beginners gaining experience, often part-time and educational. Open Source Developers are experienced contributors actively maintaining or creating projects. Internships serve as a stepping stone, while developers are core members of open source communities.

What are the most commonly searched types of Open Source jobs in California? The most popular types of Open Source jobs in California are:
What are popular job titles related to Open Source Internship jobs in California? For Open Source Internship jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Open Source Internship jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Open Source Internship jobs in California are:
What cities in California are hiring for Open Source Internship jobs? Cities in California with the most Open Source Internship job openings:
Open Source Internship jobs near you
Infographic showing various Open Source Internship job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 48% Full Time, 36% Part Time, and 16% Contract. Highlights an 100% In-person job distribution.

AI Engineer, Internship - Summer 2026 - Applications Open Now

Postman

Berkeley, CA

Temporary, Internship

Posted 8 days ago

Job description

The Opportunity (Summer 2026 AI Internship - Applications Open Now)

We're seeking an AI Engineer Intern to work alongside our AI team on large-scale AI and Agentic  systems from data pipeline to production deployment. This role is scoped for someone with foundational experience who wants to deepen it: you'll own discrete pieces of real systems under the mentorship of senior engineers, not shadow work or isolated coursework-style projects.

What You'll Do

You'll work directly with the AI team, taking responsibility for well-scoped pieces of real systems, with mentorship from senior engineers.

Benchmarks & Evaluation

  • Contribute to APIFlow-Bench, our open-source benchmark for real API-development work: design and review benchmark tasks and their mock API environments, extend the evaluation harness and task-generation pipeline in Python, and help maintain the public multi-model leaderboard with statistical confidence intervals.
  • Help build a new action-level AI safety benchmark: instead of grading what a model says, it scores what an agent actually does inside a simulated enterprise API environment. You'll work on scenario design, threat modeling (prompt injection, data exfiltration, permission overreach), and auditable evaluation design.

Model Training & Efficiency

  • Fine-tune open-weight models for tool calling and agentic tasks (SFT, distillation, and RL) using PyTorch and the open-source training ecosystem, on both managed training platforms and self-managed cloud GPUs.
  • Design and run experiments with rigor: evaluate every training run on our benchmarks, support ablation studies and error analysis, track experiments, and report results honestly, including cost.
  • Evaluate ultra-low-bit quantized models for on-device use: extend our quantized vs. full-precision benchmark comparisons and analyze where and why they diverge.

Agent Systems & Engineering Practice

  • Help build the next generation of Postman's in-product AI agent (Agent Mode): a deliberately minimal agent architecture that calls LLM APIs directly (tool loops, multi-step execution, checkpointing), primarily in TypeScript. No prior TypeScript is required; strong Python fundamentals transfer quickly.
  • Read the source code of open-source agent harnesses and turn what you learn into design specs and prototypes.
  • Document experiments, design decisions, and runbooks so your work is legible to the next person; flag safety, fairness, or privacy concerns you observe in model or agent behavior.
About You
  • Currently pursuing a BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
  • Hands-on experience training or evaluating ML models: course projects, research, hackathons, or a prior internship all count.
  • Solid Python fundamentals: data structures, functions, basic testing; comfortable writing and reviewing code outside of notebooks.
  • Working knowledge of at least one deep-learning framework (PyTorch preferred).
  • Clear written and verbal communication, and a habit of documenting what you build.
Preferred Qualifications  (none required; the more of these you have, the better)
  • Experience fine-tuning open-weight LLMs (SFT, LoRA, RL, or distillation), with the improvement measured on a benchmark.
  • Experience building LLM agents (tool calling, multi-step loops) or LLM evaluation harnesses/benchmarks, and reporting results with statistical rigor.
  • A track record of shipping real software end-to-end: APIs and services, CLIs, Docker, CI/CD, cloud; public code on GitHub is a big plus.
  • Interest or experience in AI safety and robustness: red-teaming, prompt injection, agent security, fairness, or interpretability.
  • Exposure to model-efficiency work: quantization, low-bit inference, or serving optimization.
  • Evidence of rigor and initiative: publications, technical blog posts, ablation studies, or self-driven side projects with quantified results.
  • Fluency with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) to ship fast while still deeply understanding the systems you build.

Apply