Systems Engineer Intern

About the role

Dedalus Labs builds persistent computers for AI agents. Our flagship product, Dedalus Machines, gives agents an isolated environment where they can run software, keep files and state, and work over time.

We're looking for someone who keeps asking what happens underneath an API, a process, or a virtual machine, then reads and experiments until they can explain it. You'll make scoped improvements to our control plane or Rust virtual machine monitor (VMM), the software that runs virtual machines. You'll work with engineers who care about correctness and performance.

About the internship

This is a paid, full-time internship or co-op in San Francisco lasting 3-9 months, depending on the program and agreed scope. Applications are open throughout the year, including off-cycle terms. Share your available start date and duration. You'll work alongside Dedalus engineers with direct feedback on your implementation and decisions.

We want evidence that you can learn something difficult, finish a working version, and improve it when the first approach fails. You do not need prior production ownership. You should already have a project you understand well enough to explain its hardest bug, its limits, and your personal contribution.

Your main work will be fixing bugs and papercuts, simplifying code, improving tests and tooling, and making focused speed improvements. You will work within existing systems with support from an engineer. This is how you learn the codebase and our standards. Responsibility grows as you demonstrate sound judgment, reliable execution, and clear communication.

Work you might take on

• A reproducible investigation into a slow startup, restore, or I/O path. Establish a baseline, isolate the bottleneck, and measure a focused change.

• A runtime or storage improvement with tests for cancellation, resource cleanup, or recovery after a process stops.

• A failure-injection test that exposes an incorrect ordering or lifecycle assumption and verifies the repair.

• A small refactor that removes repeated work, reduces allocations, or makes a slow code path easier to measure.

The project will have an agreed scope and completion criteria. Finishing includes code, tests, an explanation of the decisions, and a handoff another engineer can use.

What we look for

You can build and debug software in Rust, Go, C, C++, or a similar language. Rust is preferred but not required. You have a working understanding of memory, concurrency, data structures, and the operating-system behavior your project depends on.

Relevant work might be a small storage engine, networking tool, runtime, compiler, operating-system component, or performance investigation. Coursework, research, employment, open source, and independent projects all count. Explain what you personally implemented and what you learned beyond the initial instructions.

When you get stuck, you narrow the problem, read the relevant source or documentation, and try an experiment that can teach you something. You ask for help with the evidence you've collected and explain what you need to understand next. You act on feedback and keep ownership of the result.

You use AI coding tools where they help. You must be able to explain the resulting code, test its behavior, and correct it when it is wrong. We care about your judgment and understanding throughout the work.

This internship may be a poor fit if

• You want a tutorial with every implementation step supplied.

• You cannot explain or debug the code in the project you submit.

• You lose interest after the first successful run, before checking failure cases or documenting what remains incomplete.

Logistics

Paid, full-time, and in person in San Francisco for an agreed term of 3-9 months. In-person attendance is required. Applications are accepted year-round. Relocation assistance may be available, with details agreed individually. Tell us your expected graduation date and when you could start full-time. Interns who demonstrate strong work, judgment, ownership, and mutual fit may be considered for full-time roles. Conversion is not guaranteed.

Show us your work

Use your application to show us one thing you built and one difficult problem you investigated. They can come from the same project. Choose work you already have. We are not asking you to build a new project for this application.

• Work: Show the code, demo, design, or result. Explain what you personally owned, what you reused, and one decision that made the result better or simpler.

• Investigation: Describe the symptom, your first explanation, the evidence that changed your thinking, and how you established the result. Include the workload or users involved and any important limitations.

• Writing: Share one piece of writing you care about as a separate, required sample. Any medium or length is welcome. Tell us why you wrote it, who it was for, and what you wanted to communicate. Looking back, what works well and what would you change? We care about the quality of your thinking and writing, and your reflection on the work. Link it or paste a redacted excerpt. Explain your contribution and any coauthors or AI assistance.

Work from employment, open source, research, coursework, or independent projects is welcome. Public source code is optional. A redacted excerpt or a concrete account of private work is fine. Keep confidential information out of your application.

Tell us which problem in this role you want to own and why. If your strongest evidence is easy to miss on a resume, point us to it. An existing demo or short screen recording is welcome, and video is optional.

Compensation

Off-cycle internships pay $30-$40 per hour. Summer internships pay $45-$50 per hour. Actual pay is based on hours worked. At 40 hours per week, this is approximately $5,200-$6,933 per month off-cycle or $7,800-$8,667 per month in summer. We agree the applicable rate and dates before the internship begins.