IT Systems Administrator & AI Analyst Intern at Athletes… · Chicago

Named one of Sports Business Journal's Best Places to Work in Sports (2024/2025), Athletes Unlimited owns and operates professional women’s sports leagues featuring world-class competition and fan experience. 

This summer, Athletes Unlimited invites rising college seniors to become a part of an exciting softball season! As the Athletes Unlimited Softball League debuts our city-based model this year, you’ll work alongside our team to support the success of this inaugural season. Our five-week internship program is designed to enrich your professional toolkit through hands-on projects and workshops, with the goal of providing the skills and confidence to build your career in this industry.

During your time with us, you will:

• Gain Real-World Experience: Work on live projects that will directly impact AU’s overall goals under the mentorship of an AU employee
• Engage with Senior Leaders: Get direct access to and insights from the executives shaping the future of our leagues
• Develop Professionally: Develop and refine your skill set through project based work and professional workshops, culminating in a capstone project and presentation

Project Dates: June 29, 2026 - July 31, 2026

Expected Hours: 20/wk

Department Overview 

The Technology department at Athletes Unlimited ensures our team stays seamlessly connected and secure in a fully remote environment year-round. We provide technical support to ensure our operations run flawlessly during live game days, while simultaneously partnering with departments to design custom automation and AI workflows. Whether we are troubleshooting in the heat of the season or building intelligent systems to streamline our internal operations, our mission is to provide a reliable, innovative digital workspace that operates seamlessly behind the scenes.

Objective

We are looking for an intern to support day-to-day IT operations during the AUSL Season across helpdesk, systems administration, and SSO configuration. In addition to core IT responsibilities, the intern will take on applied AI development work — designing, coding, and deploying AI agents and automated workflows for internal departments. This role requires both technical IT fundamentals and the programming ability to build and customize AI-powered solutions from the ground up. This internship is remote and will report to the Director, IT. 

Key Responsibilities

IT Support & Helpdesk Operations

• Triage, manage, and resolve Level 1 IT support tickets using the organization's ticketing system.
• Perform hardware and software break/fix support for end users across departments.
• Document issue resolution steps and contribute to the internal IT knowledge base.
• Escalate complex issues to senior IT staff with clear problem summaries and diagnostic steps taken.

Identity & Access Management

• Assist with Single Sign-On (SSO) configuration and SAML 2.0 integration for organizational applications.
• Support user provisioning, deprovisioning, and role-based access control (RBAC) within Google Workspace.
• Help enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) policies and monitor access compliance.

Google Workspace Administration

• Manage user accounts, groups, organizational units (OUs), and shared drives within Google Admin Console.
• Configure Google Workspace policies including device management (MDM), data loss prevention (DLP), and security settings.
• Support email routing, alias management, and calendar resource configuration.

AI Agent Development & Custom Builds

• Build and test multi-step agentic workflows where AI models reason across tools, retrieve context, and take actions — such as auto-generating tickets, querying knowledge bases, routing requests, or drafting responses.
• Implement function calling / tool use patterns to connect LLMs (e.g., Gemini, GPT-4, Claude) to live data sources, Google Sheets, internal APIs, or third-party services.
• Conduct structured testing of agent outputs — including edge case handling, hallucination checks, and regression testing after prompt or model updates.
• Participate in the full AI project lifecycle: stakeholder requirements gathering, solution design, development, QA, deployment, and post-launch monitoring and iteration.
• Document all builds with architecture diagrams, data flow specs, prompt libraries, and developer handoff notes to ensure maintainability beyond the internship.
• Assist in establishing safety guardrails, escalation logic, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints within agent workflows.

AI Tools & Productivity Integration

• Collaborate with department leads to evaluate, deploy, and configure AI productivity tools (e.g., Google Gemini for Workspace, Microsoft Copilot, or similar platforms).
• Support rollout of AI-assisted tools for content drafting, meeting summarization, and data analysis across teams.
• Create onboarding materials, training guides, and internal wikis to help staff adopt and effectively use new AI tools.

Security & Compliance Support

• Monitor alerts from Google Workspace security dashboards and escalate anomalies.
• Monitor Endpoint Security, and take action on outstanding alerts 
• Monitor Okta logs and report anomalies

Learning Outcomes

• Hands-on experience designing, building, and deploying AI agents in a live organizational environment.
• Real-world exposure to the full AI project lifecycle — from stakeholder requirements to prompt engineering, integration, testing, and deployment.
• Working knowledge of SSO, SAML integration, and identity lifecycle management within Google Workspace.
• Experience with IT helpdesk operations, escalation workflows, and ticketing systems at scale.