What are the responsibilities and job description for the AI & ML Engineering Intern position at Dunedain?
AI & ML Engineering Intern
Dunedain Systems | Austin, TX (Hybrid) | Summer 2026 Internship
May 26 - August 15, 2026 (12 weeks) | Project Completion Bonus
About Dunedain
Dunedain builds AI-powered planning and decision tools for military units. Our platform combines frontier language models, retrieval systems, and agentic workflows into mission-ready software that works in disconnected, classified environments. We're a veteran-founded startup backed by Tier 1 venture capital, with active pilots across the military.
The Role
We're looking for a motivated AI & ML Engineering Intern to join our founding team for Summer 2026. You'll build the tools and infrastructure that our AI agents rely on every day: custom tool-calling APIs, agent orchestration components, retrieval utilities, workflow automations, and backend services that make agents faster, more reliable, and more capable in real defense environments.
This isn't a sandbox internship. The code you write ships to operational military units. You'll work directly alongside our founding engineers, own real features from day one, and leave the summer with production experience that most interns don't get until years into their career.
What You'll Do
- Design and build reusable tools and APIs that AI agents call during mission planning workflows
- Develop backend services and workflow components that support agentic systems used by military units
- Create internal utilities for retrieval, data access, and agent memory/state management
- Integrate new tools into our existing agent frameworks and test them end-to-end in realistic scenarios
- Contribute to agent testing, debugging, and performance improvements
- Participate in R&D experiments to prototype new agent capabilities for military use cases
- Document your tools so the team and the agents can use them effectively
- Own features end-to-end with mentorship from senior engineers
You'll be paired with a senior engineer mentor and have full access to our tech stack from day one. Your main focus is building the practical tools agents rely on, not ETL pipelines or large-scale model fine-tuning.
Qualifications
- Currently enrolled (rising senior, master's, or recent graduate) in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Statistics, or a related field
- Strong proficiency in Python with experience building backend services, APIs, or developer tools
- Familiarity with AI/ML concepts: you've worked with LLMs, agents, or frameworks like LangChain or Pydantic AI
- Comfortable with Git and shipping production-grade code
- Located in the Austin metro area, able to commute 2-3 days per week
- Driven by the mission: you want your work to reach the people who need it most
- U.S. Person status is required as this position needs to access export-controlled data
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience building or extending AI agent tools (tool calling, ReAct patterns, custom functions)
- Familiarity with Pydantic AI, LangChain, or similar agent frameworks
- Exposure to Docker, AWS, or cloud backend services
- Prior project work involving agentic workflows or retrieval-augmented systems
- Active security clearance (Secret or TS-SCI)
Location and Schedule
- Hybrid in Austin, TX (working out of Gevity, a high quality coworking space)
- In-office 2-3 days per week (flexible around your class/exam schedule)
- Full-time hours during the 12-week program
- Possibility of part-time extension after August based on performance
What We Provide
- Project completion bonus
- Cursor / GitHub Copilot subscription for the duration of the internship
- Three-month membership to Gevity (gym, sauna, ice baths, coworking)
- Direct mentorship from founding engineers shipping AI agents into operational military units
- Real ownership of tools that military personnel use daily
- High-impact work with a direct line to the mission
- Hybrid flexibility and a fast-moving, veteran-led team
Dunedain is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.