Software Engineering Intern (Summer 2026 - NYC)

AI is driving a fundamental shift in software economics. 

Legacy SaaS models were built for humans and per-seat licenses. But this falls apart in an AI world: for the first time, software costs are intimately tied to usage rather than seats, and soon, it will be agents, not humans, driving the majority of transactions. The rails to support this AI-native economy don't exist yet.

Lava is building them.

Lava is two sides of one network. On the Use Lava side, our MCP drops into Claude, Codex, Cursor, or any agent and gives it one connection to every tool, model, and API, with auth and billing handled. On the Build with Lava side, developers plug into our Gateway to route across 130+ AI and service providers, and our Monetize stack to charge customers via usage-based pricing, subscriptions, and prepaid credits.

Our mission is to make it effortless for people and AI to work together, starting with the ability to pay and get paid. We're looking for early engineering hires to help define how and what we build.

• Build and improve SDKs (TypeScript/Node.js) and code samples that developers and AI agents use to integrate Lava.
• Add new connectors to the Lava catalog. You'll wire up AI models, productivity tools, and data providers behind our unified Gateway so agents can use them through one connection.
  
• Work on the MCP surface that drops Lava into Claude, Codex, Cursor, and other agents, including the tools, auth flows, and primitives that let agents chain calls reliably.
  
• Help build on the Monetize side: meters, plans, checkout, and the spend keys, wallets, and identity layer that make per-request billing possible.
  
• Contribute to developer tooling: CLI, MCP servers, docs examples, integration tests.
  
• Pair with engineers on the infrastructure under all of this, including auth, metering, idempotency, request routing, and keeping Gateway overhead in the single-digit-millisecond range.
• Sit in on customer calls when relevant so you understand what you're building and why.

• Currently pursuing a degree in CS, software engineering, or a related field; available full-time in summer 2026.
• Comfortable in TypeScript or JavaScript; can read a modern Node.js codebase and ship a PR.
  
• Have built something real outside of class: a hackathon project, a side project, an open-source contribution, a useful script. Bonus points if it touched an external API or an LLM.
  
• Actively use AI tools in your own workflow, and have integrated an LLM API at least once (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.). Bonus if you've built or used an MCP server.
  
• Curious about systems: how APIs talk to each other, how to make them reliable, how things scale.
  
• Self-directed in ambiguous environments: willing to ask, then go figure it out.
  
• Driven, resourceful, and self-motivated, thriving in open-ended, fast-changing environments.

• You’ll be solving one of the hardest and most important problems in AI, building the infrastructure and payments layer that makes AI-native products possible.
• Work in a small, tight-knit, and highly motivated team that stays focused on outcomes and winning without unnecessary distractions.
• Work directly with a founder who deeply understands payments and has built in this space before.
• Be part of a company operating at the cutting edge of AI, where speed, ownership, and impact matter more than process.
• The media is already excited about what we’re building: read our TechCrunch feature here.
• Significant influence over technical and product decisions from day one.
• Help shape how an entirely new market, AI-to-AI commerce, gets built.

If you’re excited about owning big problems, building products people need, and having a direct hand in how the future of AI commerce works, we’d love to talk.