UX Engineer Intern, Applied AI at Alation in USA-CA-REDWOOD CITY

Summary: Alation is pioneering the next era of data intelligence powered by AI agents and trusted data. They are seeking a UX Engineer Intern to contribute frontend code, collaborate on design decisions, and enhance the user experience in their Applied AI squad. Responsibilities: - Contribute frontend code in our production codebase. You're an engineer first who can write clean, reviewable code and work within our stack and development workflow - Bring design judgment to everything you build. Color auditing, interaction consistency, component reuse, information hierarchy, progressive disclosure — you care about this stuff and you act on it - Work through ambiguous product problems alongside PM and engineering. Identify the use cases, map the user mental models, and make opinionated design decisions grounded in that understanding - Iterate based on feedback from the team and from real users. Treat designs as hypotheses to be tested, not deliverables to be handed off Required Qualifications: - Currently pursuing or recently completed a degree in CS, HCI, interaction design, product design, or a related field - You write frontend code. React, TypeScript, HTML/CSS — you can work in a real codebase with version control and code review, not just a sandbox - You have a portfolio that shows things you designed and built. We want to see work where you had ownership of the interaction, thinking and the implementation. Be ready to talk through the decisions, not just the deliverables - You have a design eye. You notice when something's off — inconsistent patterns, unclear hierarchy, interactions that don't feel right — and you know how to fix it, not just flag it - AI-native in your workflow. You use AI tools to move faster, but you have the design judgment to direct the output and know when it's not good enough - Fast, curious, and low-ego. You'd rather ship and learn than polish in isolation Preferred Qualifications: - Experience designing AI-powered interfaces: copilots, chat-based workflows, or generative UX patterns - Familiarity with data-dense interfaces — dashboards, tables, multi-panel layouts Required Skills: Frontend development, React, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, Version control, Code review, AI tools, Interaction design, Data visualization, Design judgment, Curiosity, Low ego