AI Data Engineer Intern - QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

Overview and Culture

Driving lasting impact and building long-term capabilities with our clients requires thriving in a high-performance, high-reward culture—doing hard things, recovering from setbacks, and demonstrating the resilience to move forward. In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities necessary to accelerate your growth into a stronger leader.

Your colleagues at all levels are invested deeply in your development, mirroring the commitment to delivering exceptional client results. Every day offers apprenticeship, coaching, and exposure that accelerates growth in unique ways.

What We Offer You When You Join Us:

• Continuous Learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture is backed by structured programs designed to foster growth. We create an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and development-focused. Success comes from embracing input and owning the fast-paced learning journey.
• A Voice That Matters: From day one, your ideas and contributions are valued. You will make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions while upholding our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity. We actively encourage diverse perspectives, recognizing them as critical drivers of the best outcomes.
• Global Community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and aids in developing superior client solutions. You will learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
• World-Class Benefits: In addition to a competitive salary (based on location, experience, and skills), we provide a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the holistic well-being of you and your family.

What You Will Do

This role offers a unique opportunity to grow at the forefront of AI, data engineering, and emerging agentic technologies. You will develop expertise at the intersection of technology and business by tackling diverse challenges in the evolving AI landscape.

You will begin building the foundational skills and hands-on experience needed to design and deliver the data infrastructure that powers cutting-edge AI applications, leveraging LLMs, retrieval systems, workflows, and emerging agentic architectures.

Key responsibilities include:

• Building and maintaining scalable data pipelines and contributing to secure data environments to prepare data for AI-driven systems, while collaborating with cross-functional teams and clients.
• Contributing to the design and development of scalable, reproducible data components essential for machine learning, agentic, and autonomous AI systems, including mapping data landscapes and applying data quality fundamentals.
• Gaining familiarity with generative AI and agentic frameworks, contributing to secure data environments, and supporting R&D initiatives focused on innovating and scaling next-generation AI capabilities.
• Contributing to solving complex, high-impact challenges for clients across various industries by developing innovative AI capabilities and scalable enterprise solutions in partnership with QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and QuantumBlack Labs.

This role involves a 10-week internship based in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, or New York during the summer of 2027, as part of our global Data Engineering community. You will work within cross-functional Agile teams, collaborating closely with Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and industry experts to deliver AI solutions.

By partnering with clients ranging from data owners to C-level executives, you will help solve complex problems that drive tangible business value and begin to develop as a client-facing technologist, gaining a holistic understanding of how data engineering enables advanced AI.

Your Background

We are looking for candidates who possess the following:

• Upcoming graduation between December 2027 and August 2028 with a degree in an engineering discipline.
• Experience in a data-focused role, gained through internships or academic projects.
• The ability to write clean, well-documented code, showing a strong preference for Python and SQL, and developing knowledge of software engineering best practices (e.g., modular code, version control).
• Interest in, or exposure to, data engineering within Agentic AI, Generative AI, or Machine Learning across various data formats and processing methods.
• Familiarity with commonly used data platforms like Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, or similar; cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP); and foundational engineering tools such as Pandas, dbt, or LangChain.
• Exposure to basic data governance, security practices, and version control using Git.
• Developing familiarity with generative AI tools and simple agentic AI frameworks, coupled with an eagerness to learn how LLMs can automate defined tasks.
• Exceptional time management skills necessary for a complex and largely autonomous work environment.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills in English and the local office language(s).