Systems Engineer Intern

About the role

ABOUT THE ROLE

Dedalus Labs builds persistent computers for AI agents. Our flagship product, Dedalus Machines, gives agents an isolated environment where they can run software, keep files and state, and work over time.

We're looking for someone who keeps asking what happens underneath an API, a process, or a virtual machine, then reads and experiments until they can explain it. You'll make scoped improvements to our control plane or Rust virtual machine monitor (VMM), the software that runs virtual machines. You'll work with engineers who care about correctness and performance.

ABOUT THE INTERNSHIP

This is a paid, full-time internship or co-op in San Francisco lasting 3-9 months, depending on the program and agreed scope. Applications are open throughout the year, including off-cycle terms. Share your available start date and duration. You'll work alongside Dedalus engineers with direct feedback on your implementation and decisions.

We want evidence that you can learn something difficult, finish a working version, and improve it when the first approach fails. You do not need prior production ownership. You should already have a project you understand well enough to explain its hardest bug, its limits, and your personal contribution.

Your main work will be fixing bugs and papercuts, simplifying code, improving tests and tooling, and making focused speed improvements. You will work within existing systems with support from an engineer. This is how you learn the codebase and our standards. Responsibility grows as you demonstrate sound judgment, reliable execution, and clear communication.

WORK YOU MIGHT TAKE ON

- A reproducible investigation into a slow startup, restore, or I/O path. Establish a baseline, isolate the bottleneck, and measure a focused change.

- A runtime or storage improvement with tests for cancellation, resource cleanup, or recovery after a process stops.

- A failure-injection test that exposes an incorrect ordering or lifecycle assumption and verifies the repair.

- A small refactor that removes repeated work, reduces allocations, or makes a slow code path easier to measure.

The project will have an agreed scope and completion criteria. Finishing includes code, tests, an explanation of the decisions, and a handoff another engineer can use.

WHAT WE LOOK FOR

You can build and debug software in Rust, Go, C, C++, or a similar language. Rust is preferred but not required. You have a working understanding of memory, concurrency, data structures, and the operating-system behavior your project depends on.

Relevant work might be a small storage engine, networking tool, runtime, compiler, operating-system component, or performance investigation. Coursework, research, employment, open source, and independent projects all count. Explain what you personally implemented and what you learned beyond the initial instructions.

When you get stuck, you narrow the problem, read the relevant source or documentation, and try an experiment that can teach you something. You ask for help with the evidence you've collected and explain what you need to understand next. You act on feedback and keep ownership of the result.