Summer 2027 Internship, Software Engineering

About the Role

As a Software Engineering Intern at General Matter, you will contribute to the development of performant, safe, and high-quality software. Your work will be crucial for code where reliability, performance, and safety are paramount. You will collaborate with diverse cross-functional teams, including electrical engineers, software engineers, chemical engineers, manufacturing engineers, nuclear engineers, materials scientists, and physicists. This role is ideal for individuals seeking high-impact work in fast-paced, intense, Skunkworks-style projects.

Intern Focus Areas

• Backend: Build high-performance services and APIs to coordinate control systems, manage state across distributed hardware, and expose interfaces for monitoring and operations.
• Distributed Systems: Develop fault-tolerant coordination systems, real-time data pipelines for high-throughput sensor telemetry, and infrastructure for reliable, large-scale critical systems.
• Tooling: Create developer platforms, CI/CD systems, observability tools, and deployment infrastructure to enable rapid and safe iteration in a production environment where mistakes have significant consequences.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist in designing and implementing high-performance software systems in C++ and Python, emphasizing reliability and maintainability.
• Support solution architecture, contributing to decisions on system design, performance trade-offs, and technology selection.
• Participate in technical design and code reviews, upholding engineering best practices.
• Help build and maintain automated testing and CI/CD pipelines to ensure software quality at scale.
• Collaborate with senior engineers on complex, ambiguous technical problems.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Proficiency in C++ and/or Python.
• Strong CS fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and system design.
• Experience with distributed systems, observability tooling, or infrastructure as code.
• Experience with Python ecosystems for data pipelines, automation, or backend services.
• Coursework or project experience with C++ performance optimization, profiling, or low-level systems programming.
• Familiarity with Linux system programming, including threading models, IPC, or low-level kernel interfaces.
• Evidence of exceptional ability (e.g., prior projects, portfolio of work, completed products).

Qualifications

• Current undergraduate or graduate student pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Collaborative team member who thrives in fast-paced, multidisciplinary environments and is eager to learn.
• Ability to work extended hours and weekends as necessary.