{"id":857120,"url":"https://alion.io/job/instead-software-engineering-intern","title":"Software Engineering Intern","company":{"id":678991,"name":"Instead","domain":"instead.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/instead-2","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"intern","employment_type":"internship","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon ECS","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"AWS Fargate","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Helicone","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"Tailwind CSS","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true},{"name":"Vue.js","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-13T07:14:16Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-17","last_verified_at":"2026-11-01T20:51:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":49,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":49},"description":"About Instead\nInstead is where tax work gets done. Our AI agent orchestrates the entirety of how work gets done in tax, from preparation and compliance to filing and advisory. It's a fundamentally new way of doing tax work, and it's why top 500 firms, Big Four teams, and enterprise corporate tax departments are choosing Instead.\nWhat makes us unique: we hold full government approvals with the IRS, 48 states, and all cities to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065, with 706, 709, 990, 5500, 2290, and PPT coming for tax year 2026. Instead is a full replacement for CCH Axcess, GoSystem, UltraTax, OneSource, CorpTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, and more. No other tax startup will be able to offer these capabilities for years as we are two to three years ahead of everyone else in government approvals. This lets us build product experiences that are simply unmatched in the market.\nInstead is backed by Conviction, IRIS (the largest tax software provider in the UK), Skylark, Aprio, and many of our partners and customers. Our team includes leaders from Intuit, Gusto, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer, PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.\nThe Role\nWe're looking for Software Engineering Interns to join our San Francisco team and build real features on our AI-powered tax platform. This is not a coffee-fetching internship. You'll ship production code that hundreds of accounting firms use, work alongside senior engineers, and get hands-on experience building with AI tools from day one.\nOur stack: Vue, Nuxt, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS on the frontend. Go, Docker on AWS ECS/Fargate, and PostgreSQL on AWS RDS on the backend. For AI, we use Cursor, Claude Code, Helicone, Gemini, and OpenAI, and we're constantly evaluating new tools.\nWhat You'll Do\nShip product features end to end on our live customer platform alongside senior engineers\nBuild and test AI-powered components including inference pipelines and prompt engineering\nFix bugs and make product improvements based on real customer feedback\nCreate internal tools that make the engineering team more productive\nLearn our full stack and contribute across frontend, backend, and AI layers\nParticipate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and product planning\nWhat You Bring\nCurrently pursuing or recently completed a degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field\nStrong programming fundamentals. You can write clean code, debug efficiently, and think about edge cases\nFamiliarity with web development (frontend or backend). Experience with any modern framework counts\nCuriosity about AI and willingness to learn. Experience with AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) is a plus\nHigh attention to detail and a bias for shipping\nAbility to work on-site in San Francisco\nWhat Makes Someone Exceptional\nYou've built and shipped side projects or open-source contributions that demonstrate your ability to go from idea to working product\nYou already use AI tools in your coding workflow and understand how they change the way software gets built\nYou learn fast and don't wait to be told what to do. When you see something broken, you fix it\nYou care about the end user, not just the code. You want to understand why something matters before you build it\nYou're excited about working at a startup where your work ships to real customers on day one\nLocation\nSan Francisco (on-site)\nInstead is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate candidates based on capability, judgment, ownership, and fit for the role's responsibilities. 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