Operational Risk Intern Jobs in Tempe, AZ (NOW HIRING)

Business Unit/Role Specific Information
The Enterprise Technology Services organization partners with every part of the American Express business to power the company's growth and innovation with trust and efficiency, and drive competitive differentiation with speed. We support the delivery and operations of technology, digital, and data capabilities, platforms, and services globally. Specifically, our team is responsible for the company's technology engineering, architecture, and infrastructure, providing 24x7 support to ensure an uninterrupted, high-quality experience for customers and colleagues. We also provide product management for core enterprise platforms, and lead technology risk and information security, enterprise data governance and platforms, digital product and design, and enterprise AI platforms on behalf of the company.
At American Express, we empower future technologists to learn, innovate, and make an impact from day one. As an AI Engineer Intern in Enterprise Technology Services, you'll join a 10-week Summer Internship Program and contribute to real-world technology projects that help teams explore, build, test, and responsibly scale AI-enabled solutions. You'll build software, collaborate with Agile teams, and learn how products are designed, developed, tested, and delivered in a global enterprise environment.
In this role, you may support work across machine learning, generative AI, intelligent automation, data pipelines, retrieval patterns, model evaluation, AI agents, agentic workflows, or AI-enabled software features. You'll work with engineers, product partners, data practitioners, security partners, and business stakeholders to learn how enterprise AI solutions are designed and delivered responsibly, reliably, and securely.
About the Team
Enterprise Technology Services teams build and operate technology that helps American Express deliver trusted, secure, and customer-first products and services. Interns may be aligned to scrum teams across backend engineering, frontend engineering, cloud engineering, mobile, AI/machine learning, data-oriented engineering, or full-stack product development.
As an AI Engineer Intern, you'll contribute at an early-career level while learning how intelligent systems are built, validated, integrated, monitored, and governed in an enterprise environment.
Responsibilities
What type of work can you expect? How will you make an impact in this role?
• Support the development and integration of AI/ML models, LLM integrations, or intelligent services into controlled or production-like systems under guidance.
• Assist with data collection, preprocessing, transformation, and management to enable model training, testing, validation, and evaluation.
• Contribute to testing, debugging, and improving AI-enabled solutions to strengthen performance, reliability, explainability, and maintainability.
• Support AI capabilities such as basic model training workflows, inference endpoints, prompt based interactions, evaluation routines, data retrieval pipelines, AI agents, or agentic workflows.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, data, risk, security, and business partners to implement AI driven solutions aligned to business requirements.
• Document model parameters, prompts, evaluation assumptions, data pipelines, system integrations, and technical decisions to support reproducibility.
• Participate in Agile development practices, including sprint planning, stand ups, demos, retrospectives, code reviews, and team ceremonies.
• Assist in ensuring AI systems and AI enabled features align with enterprise expectations for reliability, safety, governance, security, and compliance.
• Build foundational confidence working across AI-adjacent technology areas such as APIs, cloud environments, data platforms, CI/CD, containers, model deployment patterns, and monitoring.
What You'll Learn
• How AI-enabled software is designed, built, tested, and delivered in an enterprise technology environment.
• How machine learning, generative AI, LLM APIs, prompt-based workflows, retrieval patterns, AI agents, agentic workflows, and model evaluation can be applied to business problems.
• How Product, Engineering, Data, Security, Risk, and business partners collaborate from idea to implementation.
• How to balance AI innovation with quality, resilience, usability, privacy, security, compliance, and responsible AI expectations.
• How to communicate technical progress, ask effective questions, document your work, and share outcomes with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• How to grow your career through mentorship, feedback, peer learning, technical curriculum, and Early Careers programming.
• Foundational knowledge of computer science concepts such as data structures, algorithms, object-oriented programming, debugging, testing, and problem-solving.
• Foundational knowledge of machine learning concepts such as supervised learning, unsupervised learning, feature engineering, model evaluation, and basic experimentation.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
• Currently enrolled in a full-time Master's degree program
• Master's degree candidates with an expected graduation date between December 2027 and June 2028.
• Knowledge of Python and foundational data processing technologies.
• Foundational understanding of computer science concepts, including data structures, algorithms, debugging, testing, and problem solving.
• Understanding of machine learning concepts such as model training, evaluation, feature engineering, and experimentation.
• Experience using modern AI systems such as LLM APIs, prompt-based interactions, retrieval patterns, or generative AI applications.
• Awareness of responsible AI, security, governance, compliance, and reliability considerations.
• Strong communication, collaboration, documentation, and learning agility with the ability to work effectively in a team environment.
Preferred Qualifications
• Demonstrated experience through academic coursework, research, projects, open source contributions, internships, or extracurricular activities using Python, R, Java, JavaScript, or similar technologies.
• Interest in machine learning, generative AI, natural language processing, intelligent automation, data engineering, agentic AI, or AI-enabled software development.
• Experience building AI-powered applications, copilots, intelligent assistants, agentic workflows, research prototypes, or hackathon solutions using AI/ML technologies.
• Familiarity with NLP techniques and model concepts such as fuzzy matching, embeddings, BERT, transformers, or other modern language models.
• Exposure and experience with prompt engineering, prompt evaluation, tools, function calling, or agent workflow concepts.
• Experience or coursework involving ML algorithms and applying them to practical or real-world problems.
• Familiarity with APIs, data pipelines, ETL processes, cloud environments, or containerized development.
• Awareness of CI/CD, version control, testing, code reviews, and collaborative software engineering workflows.
• Curiosity for AI-powered developer tools, responsible AI practices, governance, security, and enterprise-scale delivery.
AI Engineer Areas and Skills
AI Engineer Interns may support teams based on business needs, project requirements, and individual strengths. Experience in one or more of the following areas is beneficial:
• AI/Machine Learning Engineering: Python, R, Java, machine learning fundamentals, model training, model evaluation, feature engineering, NLP, embeddings, transformer models, LLM APIs, prompt engineering, retrieval patterns, AI agents, model documentation, responsible AI concepts.
• Data Engineering for AI: Data collection, preprocessing, data quality, ETL, data pipelines, SQL, big data concepts, data validation, feature pipelines, and reproducible data workflows.
• AI-Enabled Software Engineering: APIs, microservices, inference endpoints, application integration, cloud-native development, agile delivery, testing, CI/CD, containerization, observability, and production-like deployment practices.
• Generative AI/LLM Applications: Prompt-based interactions, LLM integrations, retrieval-augmented generation concepts, evaluation of AI outputs, grounding patterns, guardrails, AI agents, agent orchestration, and human-in-the-loop review.
• Enterprise AI Readiness: Security, compliance, model governance, documentation, risk awareness, system reliability, issue escalation, and responsible AI practices.
• Cybersecurity & AI Security: Secure software development practices, application security fundamentals, identity and access management, data protection, encryption concepts, secure API design, vulnerability awareness, threat modeling fundamentals, secure use of AI/LLM technologies, AI security risks (prompt injection, data leakage, model abuse), governance controls, compliance awareness, and responsible handling of sensitive information.
Our team reviews applications on a rolling basis. We appreciate your patience while we consider your application and will contact qualified candidates regarding next steps.
Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.
Candidate Value Proposition
Backed by Amex, AI Engineer Interns gain hands-on engineering experience, manager and mentor support, technical learning, leadership exposure, and a strong peer community. This internship is a chance to explore how AI can improve customer, colleague, and partner experiences while learning how enterprise teams build responsibly, securely, and at scale.
About Us
At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.
As part of Team Amex, you'll experience our powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.
About the Team
We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries
• Flexible work arrangements and schedules with hybrid and virtual options with Amex Flex
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counselling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit out Colleague Benefits Site.
American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.
We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.
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The below represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we'll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.