Platform Engineer Intern (Backend)

Summary: Pivotor AI is a conversational career discovery platform. They are seeking a Platform Engineer Intern (Backend) to build and maintain FastAPI REST APIs, implement secure authentication, and develop various backend and AI systems. Responsibilities: - Build and maintain FastAPI REST APIs using SQLAlchemy ORM and MVC architecture for internal services and partner integrations - Implement secure authentication using Firebase Auth (OAuth, secure cookies) - Develop and productionize proof-of-concept features across backend, data, and AI systems - Design ETL pipelines with Apache NiFi for scraping, validation, and storage across MongoDB, S3, and LLM endpoints - Build high-throughput scraping pipelines using BeautifulSoup, Selenium, multiprocessing, and rate-limiting strategies - Implement NLP pipelines for deduplication, entity matching, and enrichment using spaCy, regex, and LLMs - Work across AWS infrastructure (EC2, RDS/PostgreSQL, Lambda, S3, IAM, VPC) to deploy and scale services - Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and production services using NGINX and PM2 - Contribute to LLM + RAG systems, MCP server integrations, and LangGraph agent workflows - Build internal tools and dashboards using Next.js and Tailwind - Whiteboard. Iterate. Launch Required Qualifications: - 0.5 to 1 year of backend engineering experience (projects, internships, or coursework count) - Strong Python backend development experience (FastAPI, Flask, or similar frameworks) - Experience building REST APIs and working with ORMs like SQLAlchemy - Familiarity with SQL and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB; graph databases a plus) - Experience building data pipelines, scraping systems, or ETL workflows - Exposure to NLP pipelines, LLM APIs, or RAG architectures - Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS) and deployment workflows - Hands-on experience with MCP, Cursor, or Claude for AI-assisted development (mandatory) - A GitHub portfolio that demonstrates how you think and build systems - Available immediately and on-site in Fremont - Must accept terms of an unpaid internship with potential for conversion Required Skills: Python, FastAPI, Flask, REST APIs, SQLAlchemy, SQL, NoSQL databases, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Data pipelines, Web scraping, ETL workflows, NLP pipelines, LLM APIs, RAG architectures, AWS, MCP, GitHub, Systems thinking, Prototyping Benefits: Gym, Snack bar