Systems & Infrastructure Engineer Intern, PhD (Online Analytics Engines) - Summer 2026 (Mountain View, CA)

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, built to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our products help people make powerful connections, discover exciting opportunities, build necessary skills, and gain valuable insights every day. We’re also committed to providing transformational opportunities for our own employees by investing in their growth. We aspire to create a culture that’s built on trust, care, inclusion, and fun – where everyone can succeed.

Join us to transform the way the world works.

Job Description

This internship role will be based out of Headquarters in Mountain View, California. 

At LinkedIn, our approach to flexible work is centered on trust and optimized for culture, connection, clarity, and the evolving needs of our business. The work location of this role is hybrid, meaning it will be performed both from home and from a LinkedIn office on select days, as determined by the business needs of the team. 

Are you interested in cutting edge work at the intersection of distributed systems and database internals ? The Online Analytics Engines team is responsible for building and operating the OLAP Database Engines (Query Execution, Cluster Management, Storage and Indexing) to serve low-latency analytics. The team is part of the Online Analytics Group in the Online Infrastructure Org, and frequently works with sister teams (Platform / Control Plane), partners (e.g Compute Infrastructure) and customers. 

The Engines Team is working towards a roadmap to be the one-stop shop for low latency analytics. This is the team that built and open-sourced Apache Pinot Distributed OLAP Database (powering 100+ use cases at LinkedIn) and is currently working on operationalizing more Engines (e.g Clickhouse). As a PhD Intern on this team, there is an opportunity to demonstrate technical depth, own complex engineering problems in the areas of scalable system design and architecture, distributed systems, database internals. You will have the opportunity to tackle problems at LinkedIn scale and collaborate with incredible distributed systems engineers.

 

We value academic and industrial research. Our engineers are encouraged to innovate on the product by conducting and leveraging existing research. The team is currently writing a paper that we will be submitting to a Database Research Conference later this year. We frequently present our work at conferences (USENIX, Realtime Analytics Summit, ApacheCon, P99Conf to name a few)

 

Here are few project ideas:

• Build a high performance engine in native code (C++, Rust)

• Leverage modern HW acceleration capabilities. LLVM based JIT etc. 

• Innovate on system performance optimizations across multiple resource dimensions (cpu, memory, IO) to drive key efficiency gains for the fleet.

• Example - Re-imagine IO layer that is heavily based on memory mapping files on SSDs. 

• Example - Thread per core based query architecture for improving tail latencies. 

• Capabilities

• Indexes based on Radix Tree, BW Tree for range queries, Hash Indexes for point queries. 

• Expand complex SQL support - JOINs, Window Functions, 

• Add query planning support ; cost based, rule based optimizers. 

• Upsert (in real-time).

• Tiered Storage

• Index and store nested/unstructured/semi-structured event data (e.g JSON) data

• Agentic AI based capabilities to improve operations, eliminate toil. 

Candidates must be currently enrolled in a PhD program, with an expected graduation date December 2026 or later. 

Our internships are 12 weeks in length and will have the option of two intern sessions 

• May 26th, 2026 - August 14th, 2026 

• June 15th, 2026 - September 4th, 2026 

Basic Qualifications: 

• Currently pursuing a PhD Degree in Computer Science, or related technical field and returning to the program after the completion of the internship. 

• Programming experience in one or more of the following languages: Java, C/C++, Python, Rust, Go.

• Experience with design and development of distributed systems (e.g. storage, query processing, data management). 

• Strong Computer Science fundamentals 

• Operating Systems, Data Structures, Algorithms, Computer Architecture. 

• Object Oriented Design

• We care about CPU, Memory, IO, Network, SSD v/s HDD.

• Ability to design, prototype and implement solutions for complex engineering problems

• Comfortable with Linux / Unix environment

• Comfortable with debugging, testing (functional, performance, stress)

 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Research and Development Experience focused on Systems Engineering.

• Experience with at least one native programming language(C/C++/Rust).

 

Suggested Skills

• Distributed Systems 

• Database Internals (e.g Storage, Indexing, Query Processing)

• Operating Systems

• Large Scale Systems Design & Architecture

• Cloud Computing

As part of the application process for this role, we will do an initial qualifications review followed by an on-site interview of 3 modules (design, code, and hiring manager) if your application is selected to move forward in the process.

 

LinkedIn is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. 

 

The pay range for this role is $62-$75. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor. 

 

The total compensation package for this position may also include annual performance bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans. For more information, visit https://careers.linkedin.com/benefits.

Equal Opportunity Statement 

We seek candidates with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. LinkedIn considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class. 

LinkedIn is committed to offering an inclusive and accessible experience for all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to foster an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone has the opportunity to be successful. 

If you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, apply for a position, or participate in the interview process, connect with us at [email protected] and describe the specific accommodation requested for a disability-related limitation. 

Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the application or hiring process that would enable you to fully participate in that process. Examples of reasonable accommodations include but are not limited to: 

• Documents in alternate formats or read aloud to you 

• Having interviews in an accessible location 

• Being accompanied by a service dog 

• Having a sign language interpreter present for the interview 

A request for an accommodation will be responded to within three business days. However, non-disability related requests, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response. 

LinkedIn will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by LinkedIn, or (c) consistent with LinkedIn's legal duty to furnish information. 

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance  

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, LinkedIn will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. 

Pay Transparency Policy Statement  

As a federal contractor, LinkedIn follows the Pay Transparency and non-discrimination provisions described at this link: https://lnkd.in/paytransparency. 

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates  

Please follow this link to access the document that provides transparency around the way in which LinkedIn handles personal data of employees and job applicants: https://legal.linkedin.com/candidate-portal. 

 

Equal Opportunity Statement 

We seek candidates with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. LinkedIn considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

LinkedIn is committed to offering an inclusive and accessible experience for all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to foster an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone has the opportunity to be successful.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, apply for a position, or participate in the interview process, connect with us at [email protected] and describe the specific accommodation requested for a disability-related limitation.

Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the application or hiring process that would enable you to fully participate in that process. Examples of reasonable accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Documents in alternate formats or read aloud to you
• Having interviews in an accessible location
• Being accompanied by a service dog
• Having a sign language interpreter present for the interview

A request for an accommodation will be responded to within three business days. However, non-disability related requests, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

LinkedIn will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by LinkedIn, or (c) consistent with LinkedIn's legal duty to furnish information.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance ​

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, LinkedIn will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Pay Transparency Policy Statement ​

As a federal contractor, LinkedIn follows the Pay Transparency and non-discrimination provisions described at this link: https://lnkd.in/paytransparency.

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates ​

Please follow this link to access the document that provides transparency around the way in which LinkedIn handles personal data of employees and job applicants: https://legal.linkedin.com/candidate-portal.