Software Development Engineer Intern

Duration: 6 months (Jan-June 2026). Apply only if you are available full-time to work from our Bengaluru office for the entire duration.

About the role

We’re looking for ambitious Software Development Interns who love writing clean, impactful code that other developers will actually use. You won’t shadow from the sidelines; you’ll actually design features, push production code, and solve problems that touch millions of developers every day. Your work will directly shape how developers learn, get hired, and grow their careers.  This is a hands-on, high-impact, six-month sprint. It’s your chance to sharpen your engineering chops, collaborate with world-class mentors, and leave with a body of work that’s unmistakably yours.

What you’ll do

From day one, you’ll be treated as a full member of the engineering team. Expect to:

• Own full-stack slices end-to-end- ideate, prototype, code, test, and launch production features.
• Tackle scale and performance- reduce latency, harden reliability, and optimize systems for real traffic.
• Prototype boldly and iterate rapidly- validate ideas with metrics, roll out experiments, and pivot fast.
• Push improvements constantly.
• Collaborate with product, design, and QA and participate in planning, specs, and reviews.

Who you are

You’re a pragmatic engineer who is inquisitive, hungry to learn and obsessed with craft

• Solid foundations in data structures and algorithms.
• Fluent in at least one modern language and committed to readable, maintainable code.
• Understanding of APIs, web services, and databases.
• A clear communicator and collaborative problem-solver who owns work end-to-end.
• Deeply care about your work and think beyond coding to product impact.
• An active contributor to open-source projects.

Even better if you have

• Side projects, open-source contributions, hackathon wins, or technical writing that show curiosity and impact.
• Practical experience using AI/ML tools or integrating LLMs into product flows.
• A smart sense of how to apply AI to your work.
• Knowledge of performance tuning, caching, and profiling.
• Previous internship or coding-challenge experience.

How you’ll grow here

We treat interns like product engineers - you’ll be mentored, visible, and trusted with real responsibilities:

• Dedicated 1:1 mentorship with a senior engineer who guides your roadmap and craft.
• Ship features and improvements to production quickly- often in your very first month.
• Competitive stipend, insurance, two-way travel, and reimbursements.
• Learn how business goals connect to everything you build by the way of weekly company updates from leadership.
• Cross-team pairing and exposure to engineering, design, and product leaders.
• Public spotlight for your batch’s projects- every intern class since 2018 has a dedicated page on our site.
• Strong performers are fast-tracked for return offers or full-time roles.

Past intern stories

We want every intern to have a place in HackerRank’s story - that’s why we've kept a dedicated page for every intern batch since 2018, and yours will live on our website forever too. Check out what past interns built: 2025, 2024, 2022, 2021, 2018 and more.

Hear from previous interns:
Ishan (SDE Intern, 2021), Abhishek (SDE Intern, 2021), Adyasha (SDE Intern, 2021), Sindhu (SDE Intern, 2024), Khushboo (SDE Intern, 2024), Priya (SDE Intern, 2023).

Interview prep

We know interviews can feel overwhelming, so we’ve created an Interview Prep Guide just for you. It walks you through the entire process, with tips and examples to help you put your best foot forward. Make sure to read it before you start!

You can also try our Hiring Agent, a smart tool that shows how your resume stacks up on our evaluation grid. We highly encourage you to run your resume through it before applying, it’s a great way to spot strengths and gaps early.

Insider tip: Want extra brownie points? Contribute to our GitHub project. Fork it, fix bugs, improve features, or suggest smarter ways to build. We actively look at contributions, and it’s one of the best ways to get noticed and even fast-tracked in the interview process.

All the best!! We can't wait to see your application. Apply now!
Got questions? Email [email protected] and you’ll hear from us soon.