Security Engineering Intern - Summer 2026

About Lambda

Founded in 2012, Lambda is a rapidly growing company with over 500 employees, recognized as a leader in AI cloud infrastructure. We serve tens of thousands of customers, from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers, with the mission to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and empower everyone with superintelligence.

About the Role

Lambda Security is dedicated to safeguarding invaluable digital assets, including training data, model weights, and sensitive AI model inputs. We are responsible for securing all data powering artificial intelligence.

As a Software Engineering Intern on the Security team, you will develop and deploy production security detections using Lambda's real log data. These detections will serve as the primary warning system for environmental anomalies. You will be mentored by a senior engineer, receiving guidance on code reviews, security concepts, and unblocking tasks. A frontier LLM will be your key partner for learning log schemas, analyzing threat models, and accelerating your coding process. We encourage interns to be self-directed and proficient in using AI tools, reflecting the evolving standards for junior engineers.

The work involves creating LLM-based classifiers for sensitive data exposure, detecting identity and access patterns, and contributing to the underlying security infrastructure. Project selection will be a collaborative process with your mentor, prioritizing areas with rich data and clear business value.

This role is ideal for individuals passionate about coding, excited by the prospect of using AI tools to solve complex problems, and intrigued by the challenge of protecting AI infrastructure, regardless of prior security coursework. We value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from candidates who may not meet every qualification but believe they can contribute.

Note: This position requires a hybrid work arrangement, with 4 days per week in our San Francisco office. Tuesdays are designated as work-from-home days.

What You'll Do

• Ship production-ready detections developed from Lambda's real log data, selected in collaboration with your mentor based on high-impact security needs.
• Utilize frontier LLMs as a primary tool for understanding new codebases, interpreting log schemas, developing threat models, and enhancing your productivity.
• Develop LLM-powered classifiers and rule-based detections to transform raw log data into actionable alerts for the Security team.
• Engage in collaborative code reviews and threat hunting with your mentor, while independently using AI tools to investigate and refine questions.
• Create clear documentation for your work, ensuring on-call engineers can understand alerts and respond effectively at any hour.
• Present your summer's accomplishments, learnings, and future project ideas to the security team and company leadership.

What We're Looking For

• Current enrollment in a Bachelor's or Master's program in Computer Science or a related field, with plans to return to school after the internship.
• Demonstrated experience through independent technical projects such as side projects, open-source contributions, hackathons, or research code, showcasing problem-solving and solution-building capabilities. Resumes focusing solely on coursework may not be as competitive.
• Proficiency in at least one general-purpose programming language (Go or Python preferred). Emphasis is placed on the ability to learn and effectively leverage LLMs.
• Demonstrated comfort and skill in using frontier LLMs as a coding partner, including the ability to critically evaluate model outputs and use them to enhance learning.
• Aptitude for translating ambiguous problems into well-defined, deliverable projects without requiring pre-defined tickets.
• A strong curiosity about system vulnerabilities and defenses, even without formal security training.
• Excellent written communication skills, essential for documenting work, formulating questions, and enabling collaboration.

Nice to Have

• Previous software engineering internship experience.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, etc.), command-line environments, or systems-level programming.
• Experience building AI-assisted projects that exceeded individual capabilities.
• Experience processing log data, structured event data, or stream processing.
• Foundational knowledge of security concepts through CTFs, coursework, or personal projects.
• Coursework or projects related to machine learning, data classification, or applied AI.

Salary Range Information

This is an hourly position eligible for overtime. The provided hourly rate is based on market data and other factors. Adjustments may be made based on significant differences in candidate qualifications.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We consider all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other protected status.