Engineer (Shifts)

Cogna, an ambitious well-funded startup, is on a mission to build the reliable LLM-first compiler to enable the next billion natural language developers. We aim to empower vast numbers of people with software, and hence to better the world. We are sprinting towards our vision, building a significant company along the way. We’re following in the footsteps of compiler pioneer Grace Hopper, who argued in the 1950s that it’s “much easier for most people to write English than use symbols” when programming. She said: “I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code”. Her vision led to COBOL, and now 70 years later, the same vision, powered by generative AI, can empower business people to build apps directly from natural language. We are hiring multiple interns to join our team of experts building the future of software and natural language programming. Given the recent advances in AI, we're on the cusp of a seismic shift in the way software is developed. This is your chance to be part of it, and experience life at an AI startup. There is a wide range of interesting technical challenges here in software engineering, programming languages, and AI: how to elicit requirements from end users, how to generate full stack code to meet those requirements, how to automatically generate tests, to repair faults, to generate verifiable code, and to deploy securely and to maintain and revise over time. We are tackling these challenges step by step by building a working system with customers, and extending as we go, in light of feedback from real examples. For our long-term vision, see our keynote presentation at ICFP 2024 in Milan: Requirements are all you need! The Role Internships will last a minimum of 16 weeks during summer 2025, based at our offices in central London, with competitive salary. At Cogna, interns engage in real-world projects alongside our product team. Your responsibility will be to develop methods to make meaningful contributions to the quality of our product pipeline, closely guided by your engineering mentor. These internships are for candidates who have an existing right to live and work in the UK. Our working environment is fast-paced and demanding, yet also fun and closely bonded, with a low-ego culture. Qualifications Achieved or nearing completion of masters degree in computer science, engineering or equivalent experience. Preferred: enrolled in PhD-level degree in area of research that analyses or synthesises code, or AI for code Excellent coding skills in strongly-typed languages such as C++, C#, Java, Rust, Golang, Haskell, Ocaml, TypeScript, typed Python or equivalent experience Preferred: experience programming with large language models Excellent verbal and written communication skills