Summer Intern 2026 - Design and Strategy

Overview

Be an agent of change on a team committed to achieving client-focused, mission-driven excellence. Steampunk is the explosive collision of customer-centered design and traditional government contracting. We are an employee-owned company with a startup mindset and time-tested approaches tailored for the federal government. We’re passionate about creating solutions that are impactful, practical, and scalable while meeting our clients’ ever-changing needs. We believe in empowering our teams to find creative solutions to intractable problems. We believe the best environment in which to grow and thrive is outside our comfort zone. We believe that while good design makes for a good product, customer-centered design makes for an excellent one.

Contributions

What you’ll do:

As a Design & Strategy intern, you will learn about our Design Intelligence® framework and how to incorporate customer-centered methods to deliver a quality experiences at speed. Your typical day may include:

• Planning and conducting user research including user and stakeholder interviews, facilitated workshops, and co-creation sessions
• Synthesizing research to develop artifacts like personas and journey maps
• Developing and iterating on possible solutions through prototyping and wireframing
• Planning and conducting user-testing sessions
• Organizing your work in Agile sprints and attending daily stand ups to coordinate with project manager and/or design lead
• Preparing artifacts and deliverables for presentations and feedback sessions

What you’ll learn:

• Participatory design methods to understand customer needs and articulate problems and pain points
• How to iterate and improve on ideas and processes
• How to plan your work in an efficient and agile way
• How to collaborate across different team roles and functions
• How to articulate design decisions and present your work to stakeholders

What you’ll experience:

• A work culture like no other where design is valued and at the center of everything we do
• An exciting and collaborative studio environment
• Direct mentorship from leadership
• Exposure to various disciplines both in design and other core technical capabilities
• Group social events that promote networking, relationship building, comradery, and service

Qualifications

Qualifications:

• This internship is in person; you must be able to work from our Design Intelligence studio in Tysons Corner, Virginia at least 3 days/week
• Rising third year student or above with a concentration in UX Design, User Interface/Interaction Design, Product Design, Service Design, Organizational Change, or Instructional Design
• Critical thinking skills, a collaborative nature, and a curiosity for solving complex problems
• Local to the DMV area 

About steampunk

Identity Statement

As part of the application process, you are expected to be on camera during interviews and assessments. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud.

Steampunk is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, bringing new thinking to clients in the Homeland, Federal Civilian, Health and DoD sectors.  Through our Human-Centered delivery methodology, we are fundamentally changing the expectations our Federal clients have for true shared accountability in solving their toughest mission challenges.  As an employee owned company, we focus on investing in our employees to enable them to do the greatest work of their careers – and rewarding them for outstanding contributions to our growth. If you want to learn more about our story, visit http://www.steampunk.com.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Steampunk participates in the E-Verify program.