MIT- Software Engineer Intern | Engine

About the Role

As a Software Engineer Intern, you will design, implement, test, and improve production-quality software for the SingleStore database. You will work on well-scoped projects, participate in technical discussions and code reviews, and gain hands-on experience solving challenging problems in large-scale software systems.

Your work may include:

• Developing new features and improvements across the SingleStore database
• Working on SQL query processing and query optimization
• Improving storage engines, indexing, and data management
• Building reliable distributed-system components
• Working with concurrency, multithreading, and fault tolerance
• Investigating performance, scalability, and correctness issues
• Writing production code, tests, documentation, and technical designs
• Collaborating with engineers, product managers, and cross-functional partners

Depending on the team and project, you may also work with performance engineering, SIMD, LLVM-based code generation, search, vector search, cloud infrastructure, or AI data workloads.

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and computer architecture
• Understanding of concurrency, multithreading, and server-based systems
• Programming experience in C++ or C
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to communicate clearly and collaborate effectively with teammates
• Curiosity, ownership, and willingness to learn

Prior professional experience is not required. We welcome candidates who have developed their skills through coursework, research, projects, internships, or open-source contributions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Coursework or project experience in databases, distributed systems, operating systems, compilers, networking, or storage systems
• Experience debugging or optimizing systems-level software
• Familiarity with Linux or Unix-based systems
• Experience with performance profiling, memory management, or low-level programming
• Experience contributing to production software or substantial technical projects

What You’ll Gain

• Hands-on experience building software for a production distributed database
• Mentorship from experienced database and systems engineers
• Exposure to database internals, query processing, storage, reliability, and performance engineering
• Opportunities to collaborate across engineering and product teams
• A supportive environment focused on technical growth and meaningful ownership
• A deeper understanding of how software is designed, tested, released, and operated