When Do Summer 2027 Internships Open? AI Hiring Report, Week of September 7
They are open now. On September 7, 2026 we counted 16 postings with “2027” in the title across the 20 AI and robotics employer job boards we read every morning. On August 31 there were 4. Twelve of the sixteen went up in the last eight days. Eleven of the sixteen are US roles, and they come from exactly three companies: Waymo, Sierra and Scale AI. The guides that rank first for this question say Waymo’s 2027 roles open “between October 2026 and January 2027.” Waymo’s first one went up on August 28.
This is the first of our Monday hiring reports, and it starts with the question students have been sending to the desk since the last week of August: am I early, or am I already late?
We can answer it without guessing, because we do not read advice about the season — we read the boards. Every morning a script here pulls the public Greenhouse and Ashby feeds behind 20 AI and robotics career pages and files what it finds into the tracker and the jobs board. Nineteen boards answered this morning. Together they held 3,784 open roles, of which 2,991 are in the US.
Then we did something we had not done before: we asked how many of those postings say “2027” out loud. The answer moved four-fold in a week.
Four postings on Monday, sixteen on Monday
For the whole second half of August the count sat between two and four. On September 1 it jumped to nine. By September 4 it was thirteen, and this morning it is sixteen.
The four postings that existed on August 31 are worth naming, because they explain why nobody noticed the season had a starting gun. Three were Cohere co-op listings for Winter 2027, remote in Canada, up since May. The fourth was a Waymo research internship first published on August 28. Nothing a US undergraduate searching in August would have found.
Then, in eight days, Waymo posted five more, Sierra posted six, and Scale AI posted one.
Every US 2027 posting we can see this morning
| Company | Role | Location | Pay range | First posted | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, MS/PhD, Quantitative UX Researcher, Growth/International Expansion | San Francisco, California | not published | 2026-08-28 | Apply |
| Sierra | Software Engineer, Agent (New Grad 2027) | San Francisco, CA | $150,000–$180,000 | 2026-08-31 | Apply |
| Sierra | Intern, Agent Development (Summer 2027) | San Francisco, CA | not published | 2026-08-31 | Apply |
| Sierra | APX (New Grad 2027) | San Francisco, CA | $150,000–$180,000 | 2026-08-31 | Apply |
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, MS/PhD, Data Science – Commercialization Testing | San Francisco, California | not published | 2026-08-31 | Apply |
| Sierra | Intern, Agent Development (Winter 2027) | San Francisco, CA | not published | 2026-09-01 | Apply |
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, MBA, Operations Planning | San Francisco, California | not published | 2026-09-01 | Apply |
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, BS/MS, Pipeline and Test Health Engineer | San Francisco, California | not published | 2026-09-03 | Apply |
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, BS, SysEng Software Engineer | Mountain View, California | not published | 2026-09-03 | Apply |
| Waymo | 2027 Summer Intern, MS, Software Engineering, Behavior Test | San Francisco, California | not published | 2026-09-03 | Apply |
| Scale AI | Software Engineering Intern (Summer 2027) | San Francisco, CA | not published | 2026-09-04 | Apply |
Read on the employers’ own feeds on September 7, 2026. “First posted” is the first_published date in the feed, not the date the careers page displays — those two disagree more often than you would think. Five further 2027 postings are outside the US: three Cohere co-ops remote in Canada, two Sierra roles in Singapore.
Three things in that table are worth saying plainly.
Almost none of them publish pay. Two of the eleven do, and both are Sierra’s new-grad tracks at $150,000–$180,000. (Scale AI posted a new-grad software engineer role the same week at $124,000–$162,000; it is not in the table because its title does not say 2027.) The six Waymo internships publish nothing, which is legal in California for internships but still a gap you should price before you commit a summer. Across all US roles on these boards, 73.1% publish a range, so student roles are the less transparent end of the market, not the more.
None of them carry a deadline. Greenhouse gives employers an application_deadline field. We opened the Waymo systems-engineering internship this morning and read the raw record: the field is empty. That is the norm, not an oversight. Which means the honest version of “when does it close” is when they stop reading, and nobody outside the company knows that date.
The degree requirement is specific. Waymo splits its six postings by level in the title itself — BS, BS/MS, MS, MS/PhD, MBA. The systems-engineering one asks for a candidate “currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering.” You do not have to guess which one you are eligible for; it is in the title.
The two names you were going to apply to are not on the list
This is the finding that surprised us, and it is the one most likely to change what you do this week.
We searched all 3,784 postings for the words intern, internship, new grad, co-op, residency, fellow, fellowship, apprentice and scholar. Sixty-two postings matched, forty-one of them in the US. Here is how the two most-searched employers in the set come out:
- OpenAI: zero. Not one of its 781 open postings this morning is an internship, new-grad, fellowship or residency role.
- Anthropic: three, out of 592. All three are Anthropic Fellows Program postings, and all three list London, Ontario and “Remote-Friendly” — none is a US-located student role.
So the two labs students most want to work for are, on any given morning in early September, the two least likely to have anything a student can apply to. That is not a judgement about them — both hire early-career people through other doors, and Anthropic’s Fellows Program is a real and well-paid one. It is a statement about where the applications should go this month. If your plan for September was “apply to OpenAI and Anthropic,” the boards say your plan has no targets in it.
The employers that do have targets are the robotics and autonomy companies. Which is a different application problem than the one most people are preparing for.
“Entry-level” on these boards mostly does not mean intern
We flag a posting as entry-level when it is an internship, a new-grad track, a residency, an apprenticeship or a technician role that does not demand prior experience. There were 90 open in the US this morning, up from 76 last Monday.
But the shape of that 90 is not what a computer-science student expects. The largest block by far is xAI’s 24 — and those are chiller technicians, medium-voltage electrical technicians, plumbing technicians and mechanical technicians, nearly all of them in Memphis and Southaven. 1X has 14 and Figure AI 13, and those are assembly, quality and hardware technicians in California. These are real jobs with real pay, many of them open to people without a degree. They are just not internships.
Only 13 of the 90 publish a salary range at all. Of those that do, the lowest floors this morning are Agility Robotics’ service technician at $60,000–$78,000 in Salem, Oregon, and xAI’s IT services technician at $61,200–$91,800 in Memphis.
If you are a student reading this and the technician route sounds like a detour, it is worth knowing it is the fastest-growing door into these companies and the only one that was open all summer.
The rest of the week: 327 in, 248 out
Underneath the season story, the wider market moved the way it has moved all summer: up, slowly, and sideways in character.
Three hundred and twenty-seven postings appeared that were not there last Monday. Two hundred and forty-eight disappeared. Net growth was 79. By company, OpenAI added the most (+28 net, 781 open), then Anthropic (+21, 592), Perplexity (+15) and Sierra (+12). Figure AI shed the most, down 14 to 112.
The interesting part is what the new roles are. Sorted by the department field in the feeds, the 327 additions break down as go-to-market 24, sales 21, finance 18, data centre 17, applied AI 11, people 10, marketing 10, operations 10 — and engineering 9. Commercial hiring outnumbered engineering hiring roughly five to one this week. A year into the buildout, these companies are staffing the part that sells and the part that keeps the buildings cool, not the part that does research.
The median US posting that publishes a range asks for $225,000–$310,000, up $4,000 at the floor from last Monday. San Francisco holds 1,651 of the 2,991 US roles. Memphis is now third with 126, behind Mountain View’s 219 — which is a map that did not exist eighteen months ago.
One board went dark, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
On September 6 the Google DeepMind Greenhouse board started returning a 404, and it did so again this morning. It held nine postings when it last answered on September 5. We tried three plausible board tokens today and all three 404.
So our week-over-week total of +79 is really +88 on the boards that stayed up, minus nine postings we can no longer see. We have left the number at 79 and told you why rather than quietly patching it. If you are looking for DeepMind roles, they are not gone — the feed we were reading is. Go to Google’s own careers site instead.
Two videos worth the time before you apply
What to do with this
- This week, not next month. Eleven US 2027 postings exist right now. Apply to the ones in the table above from the employer’s own page. There is no deadline to wait for and no deadline to miss — they close when they close.
- Pick by the level in the title. Waymo has written BS, BS/MS, MS, MS/PhD and MBA into the posting titles. Applying to the wrong one is the cheapest mistake to avoid.
- Ask about pay before you accept, not before you apply. Only two of the eleven publish a range. That is normal for student roles and not a reason to skip them, but write down what you need before the offer call.
- If you want to work at OpenAI or Anthropic, September is not the month. Neither has a US student posting open. Put the effort into the companies that do, and watch the labs separately.
- If you are not a student, the 90 entry-level roles are the live door. Browse them, filtered, on the jobs board — every row links straight to the employer’s application page.
- Check the counts before you write a cover letter that guesses at the market. They refresh every morning on the tracker.
If you want to go deeper
- “Which of these companies should I actually target?” — who is hiring right now and which one pays the most.
- “Am I qualified?” — whether you need a PhD, whether a certificate is worth it, and what to say about AI on your resume.
- “What if I want to stay in academia?” — that season runs on real deadlines: when faculty jobs get posted, the faculty search tracker, and labs recruiting for next fall.
- “I need money now, not next summer.” — part-time and remote AI work, whether AI training jobs are legitimate, and national laboratory jobs without a degree. New here? Start here or browse the resources shelf.
Ask the desk
Tell us your year, your major and your constraint — visa, location, no car, needs to be paid — and we will go through the boards for you and post what we find. It is free and there is no catch. Post your request on the Jobs Desk, or ask us anything else. One short email a month, no more.
We are not recruiters. We take no money from any employer named here, and every link goes to the company’s own application page. Postings close without notice — the official page always wins over ours. Nobody should ever ask you to pay a fee, cash a cheque or apply over a messaging app for any of these roles.
Questions students are asking about the 2027 season
When do summer 2027 internships open?
For AI and robotics companies, they are open now. On September 7, 2026 we counted 16 postings with “2027” in the title across 20 AI and robotics employer boards, up from 4 on August 31. Eleven are in the US, from Waymo, Sierra and Scale AI. The first US 2027 summer internship in our data went live on August 28, 2026.
Is it too late to apply for a summer 2027 internship?
No. Every US 2027 posting we can see was first published between August 28 and September 4, 2026, so the oldest is ten days old. None of them carries a published application deadline, and the Greenhouse deadline field on the Waymo internship we opened is empty. Rolling review means applying sooner is better, but nothing has closed.
Which AI companies have summer 2027 internships open right now?
On September 7, 2026: Waymo has six 2027 summer internships, split by degree level between Mountain View and San Francisco. Sierra has four US roles — two new-grad tracks and two agent-development internships. Scale AI has a Summer 2027 software engineering internship and a new-grad software engineer role, both in San Francisco.
Does OpenAI have an internship for summer 2027?
Not on its public board. On September 7, 2026, none of OpenAI’s 781 open postings was an internship, new-grad, fellowship or residency role. Anthropic had three, all Anthropic Fellows Program postings listing London, Ontario and remote-friendly locations rather than a US office.
How much do AI internships and new-grad roles pay?
Most do not say. Of the eleven US 2027 postings open on September 7, 2026, only two publish a range, and both are Sierra’s new-grad tracks at $150,000–$180,000. Waymo’s six internships publish nothing. Scale AI posted a new-grad software engineer role the same week at $124,000–$162,000, though its title does not name the year. Across all US roles on these boards 73.1% publish a range, so student postings are less transparent than the market average.
What is the deadline to apply for a 2027 internship?
There generally is not one. Greenhouse provides an application-deadline field and the employers we read leave it empty. In practice the posting closes when the team stops reading, and that date is not published. Treat any specific deadline you see quoted for these companies as an estimate, not a fact.
Do I need a PhD for these internships?
No, and Waymo says so in the titles: of its six 2027 summer internships, one asks for a BS, one BS/MS, one MS, two MS/PhD and one MBA. The systems-engineering role asks only for a candidate currently pursuing a bachelor’s in computer science, computer engineering or electrical engineering.
Are there entry-level AI jobs for people who are not students?
Yes, and there are more of them than there are internships. We counted 90 open entry-level US roles on September 7, 2026 against 41 US intern, new-grad and fellowship postings. Most of the 90 are technician roles — xAI has 24, largely in Memphis, and 1X and Figure AI have 27 between them in California. Many do not require a degree.
Cite this: profhlab Jobs Desk, “AI Hiring Report, week of September 7, 2026: the summer 2027 season opened,” September 7, 2026. Postings with “2027” in the title across 20 AI and robotics boards rose from 4 on August 31 to 16 on September 7; 11 are US roles from Waymo, Sierra and Scale AI; 3,784 total open roles, +79 net in seven days; OpenAI 0 and Anthropic 3 non-US student postings. profhlab.com/ai-jobs-tracker
Method and limits. We read the public Greenhouse and Ashby feeds of 20 AI and robotics employers on September 7, 2026 and compared them, posting by posting and by URL, against our own August 31, 2026 scan. Nineteen boards answered; the Google DeepMind board returned 404 on September 6 and 7, and the nine postings it last showed are excluded from both the total and the week-over-week change. “First posted” uses first_published on Greenhouse and publishedAt on Ashby. The “2027” count is a literal string match on posting titles, so it undercounts any 2027 role whose title does not name the year, and student roles that are advertised only through a university careers office are invisible to us entirely. Entry-level is our own classification, not the employers’. Being in a feed is not evidence that anyone is reading applications. No federal USAJOBS records are included in this count.
Written by Prof. H. The Jobs Desk publishes daily and this hiring report runs every Monday; the underlying counts refresh every morning on the tracker and the board. Next Monday: whether the September wave keeps going, and which of these eleven postings are still open.
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