Sophia Engineering Intern

Strategic Education • Contract • Hybrid in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States • $19 - $29 / hour • 12h ago

Fast Facts

Sophia is seeking a summer Engineering Intern for their online learning platform, providing hands-on experience in a production environment from June 1 to August 7, 2026.

Responsibilities: Interns will work on real projects, improve production code, and understand the full stack of web applications, including deployment and security practices.

Skills: Candidates should possess a curiosity for technology, problem-solving abilities, and a foundational understanding of programming, with readiness to learn new languages and frameworks.

Qualifications: Preferred candidates will have strong analytical skills and the ability to work effectively with existing codebases.

Location: This position is based in Minneapolis, MN, with no remote work options.

Compensation: $19 - $29 / Hourly

** The internship is from June 1, 2026 to August 7, 2026**

About Sophia

Sophia is an online learning platform that helps tens of thousands of students earn college-level credits and credentials through self-paced courses. We partner with universities, employers, and organizations to make higher education more accessible and affordable. When you build something at Sophia, real learners use it to change their lives.

The Opportunity

We're looking for a summer intern who wants to do meaningful engineering work on a production platform that people depend on every day. This isn't a sandbox project — you'll be contributing to the same codebase, systems, and workflows our full-time engineers use, with mentorship and support to help you grow.

What You'll Experience

Building software that reaches real users. You'll work on features and improvements that ship to production and are used by students actively completing courses, earning credentials, and advancing their education. You'll see firsthand how your engineering decisions shape the experience for learners.

Understanding how modern web applications work end to end. You'll trace how a user action on the frontend becomes an API request, flows through backend logic, interacts with data stores, and returns a response. You'll develop intuition for how the layers of a production application fit together and depend on each other.

Working across the stack. You'll have the opportunity to work in both backend services and frontend interfaces, understanding how they connect and where the boundaries are. You'll gain experience reasoning about where logic belongs and how to design clean interfaces between systems.

Learning how production systems are deployed and maintained. You'll see how code moves from a local environment through testing, containerization, and into cloud infrastructure. You'll gain exposure to how teams ship software reliably and what it takes to keep a platform running at scale.

Developing a security-aware engineering mindset. You'll work in a system where authentication, authorization, data privacy, and academic integrity are core concerns — not afterthoughts. You'll learn to think about security as a fundamental part of building software, not a checklist.

What We're Looking For

We care more about how you think than what you already know. Strong candidates will bring:

Curiosity about how things work beneath the surface and a willingness to dig into unfamiliar code
The ability to break down problems, ask good questions, and communicate what you're learning
Comfort working in a codebase you didn't write and a willingness to read more code than you write
A desire to understand why things are built the way they are, not just how
Enough programming foundation to be productive with guidance — the specific languages and frameworks matter less than your ability to learn them

What You'll Walk Away With

By the end of the summer, you'll have experience working in a production codebase with real users, a deeper understanding of how backend and full stack systems are designed and operated, and the engineering judgment that comes from shipping work that matters. You'll also have a clearer picture of what professional software development looks like day to day — the collaboration, the tradeoffs, and the satisfaction of seeing your work in the hands of people who need it.

SEI offers a comprehensive package of benefits to employees scheduled 30 hours or more per week. In addition to medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans, SEI employees may take advantage of well-being incentives, parental leave, paid time off, certain paid holidays, tax saving accounts (FSA, HSA), 401(k) retirement benefit, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, tuition assistance as well as entertainment and retail discounts. Non-exempt employees are eligible for overtime pay, if applicable.

Careers - Our Benefits, Strategic Education, Inc

SEI is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive and collaborative culture where individuals can grow their careers and contribute fully. We strive to attract talent with broad experiences, skills and perspectives. We welcome applications from all. While it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top end of the pay range at SEI, we offer a competitive salary. The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate may vary depending on multiple factors including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, geographical location, and internal pay equity. Our Talent Acquisition Team is ready to discuss your interest in joining SEI. The expected salary range for this position is below.

$19.50 - $29.75 - Hourly

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete our application process, please contact our Human Resources Department at Careers@strategiced.com.