Scale AI Internships 2027: Programs, Pay and How to Apply

Scale AI is already hiring for its Summer 2027 internship class, and the postings are live right now rather than a promise for later in the year. ApplyBolt's board shows real Software Engineering Intern roles in San Francisco with May or June 2027 start dates, plus a separate part-time Technical Advisor Specialist internship.

That's earlier than a lot of AI companies move on student hiring. If you're targeting the AI infrastructure space for next summer, Scale is one of the few places where you can apply to a concrete, open role today instead of watching a careers page for something to post.

What Scale AI actually does

Scale doesn't build a consumer app. It builds the data infrastructure other AI companies rely on: labeled training data, reinforcement learning from human feedback and annotation work that feeds large language models, generative AI systems and computer vision models. Its customers are AI labs and companies building on top of that data, not end users, so interns work on tooling and pipelines rather than a public product.

What the internship looks like

Scale's own posting language is direct about the expectation: interns are meant to own shipped work on the same roadmaps as full-time engineers, with mentorship from the team rather than a set-aside intern project. That's a heavier lift than some internships, and it comes with a correspondingly high qualification bar.

What background you need

The live Summer 2027 posting targets students graduating Fall 2027 or Spring 2028, meaning current juniors, studying computer science, EECS, computer engineering or a related field. Scale wants candidates who've already built full-stack web applications, ideally with a previous software engineering internship on their resume, and who are comfortable with Python, TypeScript, React or MongoDB. It's not an entry-level bar; expect stiff competition.

Pay

Scale doesn't list a pay figure on the posting itself. User-reported data on Levels.fyi puts a recent summer cohort's software engineering intern pay around $60 an hour, plus a roughly $7,000 housing stipend, up from about $55 an hour a couple of cycles earlier. That's self-reported past data, not a confirmed number for the 2027 class, so treat it as a rough reference rather than a guarantee.

How to apply

Apply directly through the posting on Scale's careers site. Because the role is already live and Scale hires on a rolling basis rather than a single fixed deadline, there's no reason to wait: get your application in now while the posting is open rather than treating it as something to circle back to later in the fall.

For how Scale's pay and requirements compare to other AI companies hiring interns right now, see our AI/ML internships 2027 guide. If software engineering internships broadly are what you're after, our summer 2027 SWE internships guide covers the wider market.