Machine Learning Engineer Intern - Summer 2026

About Novaflow

Novaflow is the AI data analyst for biology labs. Analytics is the bottleneck for scientific discovery. Biologists have to outsource analysis to expensive bioinformaticians or core services and wait weeks or months for results. We're solving this by putting analysis directly back into the hands of researchers, allowing them to go from raw data to publication-ready insights and visualizations in days instead of months. We're well-funded, growing extremely fast, and backed by leading investors including Y Combinator and BioRender.

About the Role

We're hiring a Machine Learning Engineer Intern to help build the AI systems that power our platform. The core challenge: take a natural language query from a biologist and turn it into a correct, reliable bioinformatics workflow. You'll work with LLMs, experiment with prompt engineering and fine-tuning, and help build evaluation systems to measure when the outputs are actually good.

This is not a sit-in-the-corner internship. We're a small team and you'll work directly with the founders on real problems from day one. We're looking for someone with high agency who takes initiative and doesn't wait to be told what to do. Biology background is not required.

This role can be remote or in-person at our San Francisco office. There is potential to convert to a full-time position based on performance.

What You'll Work On

• Help build and improve LLM-powered pipelines that turn natural language into bioinformatics workflows
• Assist with evaluation pipelines and benchmarks to measure model quality
• Experiment with fine-tuning, RAG, prompt engineering, and different model architectures
• Help deploy and scale models in production on AWS or GCP
• Contribute to AI tooling and infrastructure decisions
• Work across the team to integrate ML capabilities into the product

Requirements

• Currently pursuing or recently completed a Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or a related field
• Strong Python skills
• Familiarity with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar)
• Basic understanding of LLMs and modern AI techniques (fine-tuning, RAG, prompt engineering)
• Some experience working with datasets and building data pipelines
• Can think critically about when an LLM output is actually correct

Nice to Have

• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications
• Familiarity with Anthropic, OpenAI, or other LLM APIs
• Experience with Docker and cloud platforms (AWS or GCP)
• Exposure to scientific or biological data
• Previous startup experience (prior experience either working for or founding a startup)

Why Join Us?

• Competitive intern compensation
• Meals covered when you're in the office (lunch daily, dinner when you're working late)
• Opportunity to convert to a full-time founding team role
• Work directly with the founders with full visibility into product strategy, customer conversations, and fundraising
• Real responsibility from day one at a fast-growing YC company
• If you're curious about being a founder one day, this is your front-row seat.