Software Engineer Intern (Fall 2026)

About the job

As a Software Engineer Intern at EffiGov, you’ll work directly with the founders and engineering team to build and ship production software used by local governments across the country.

You’ll ship features, solve real customer problems, work across the stack, and take ownership of projects that make it into production. You’ll learn to balance scrappiness with good engineering judgment—we do things manually or hardcode them at least twice before building an abstraction for the third time.

We’re looking for someone who moves quickly, learns aggressively, and wants unusually high ownership early in their career.

This is a Fall 2026 internship based in San Francisco, CA, in person.

About The Team

EffiGov is a technology company dedicated to improving the way our cities work. Our team combines experience shipping AI applications at top technology companies with track records of local and federal civil service.

We believe that some of the most foundational institutions in the country—local governments providing critical services to millions of Americans every day—are severely underserved by modern software and AI. We’re working to change that.

What Your Internship Might Look Like

• Day 1: Arrive at EffiGov HQ. Onboard. Ship your first feature using Python/FastAPI or TypeScript/Next.js.
• Day 5: Investigate and resolve your first real customer issue. Trace the problem through our application, integrations, and infrastructure and ship the fix.
• Day 12: Improve a deployment, internal tool, or engineering workflow that makes the whole team faster.
• Day 20: Take ownership of a scoped product problem. Work with founders and engineers to understand the customer need, decide what to build, and get it into production.
• Day 30: Debug an issue in one of our production AI systems. Identify the root cause, implement the fix, and improve the system so the same failure doesn’t happen again.
• Day 45: Build and launch a meaningful new capability for one of our government customers.
• Day 60: Notice something that could be substantially better without being asked. Build the improvement and ship it.
• Day 90: Leave behind a part of the EffiGov product or infrastructure that is materially better because you owned it.

What’s Required

• Currently pursuing a degree in computer science, engineering, math, statistics, physics, or another quantitative field, or equivalent demonstrated technical ability
• Strong programming fundamentals and the ability to independently build software
• Experience building full-stack applications or backend systems
• Experience with at least some of: Python, TypeScript, React/Next.js, APIs, cloud infrastructure, or Docker
• Demonstrated initiative and “love of the game”—for example, projects with real users, internships, hackathon wins, research, open-source contributions, or products you built because you wanted them to exist
• Ability to move quickly through unfamiliar technical problems
• Strong written and verbal communication

Big Bonuses

• Experience building with LLMs, voice AI, or other production AI systems
• Previous startup experience
• Projects with meaningful real-world usage
• Experience with Python, FastAPI, TypeScript, Next.js, MongoDB, AWS, OpenAI, LiveKit, or Twilio

Small Bonuses

• Humanities coursework alongside a technical degree
• Published written work
• Policy, government, civic technology, or public-sector experience

Why Join

You want to have a tangible impact on the real, built world for everyone, not just the top 1%.

You want to spend a semester surrounded by people who push themselves and each other to be better.

You want to be surrounded by the top minds in AI + government for whom work is not a paycheck but a purpose.