6-Month Backend Python Developer Internship at AI Startup (ETH Spin-off)

Location: Hybrid – with min. 4 days per week in our Zurich office (Hardbrücke)

Employment: 100%

Start date: Immediately or upon agreement

Term: 6 months

Languages: English required, German optional

About Us

askEarth helps analytics, geospatial, and data leaders at Swiss and international energy & insurance firms elevate their geospatial intelligence. We help them cut costs by automating existing workflows and generate revenue by unlocking insights faster. As a VC-backed ETH, UZH & EPFL spin-off, we’re building the world’s first AI-native geospatial intelligence agent.

Position Overview

We’re looking for a curious, motivated, and highly independent AI / Backend Developer Intern with strong Python skills and a passion for solving real-world problems with modern AI.

You’ll work closely with our technical founders and engineering team to build, test, and improve the backend systems and AI workflows powering our geospatial intelligence platform. This role offers the opportunity to work on the newest AI technologies and contribute directly to active customer projects.

The internship is hands-on and impact-oriented: you’ll primarily contribute to live customer projects, while the remaining time will be spent working closely with the askEarth team on product development, engineering quality, and internal platform improvements.

This role requires self-supervision, independent execution, and strong attention to quality and detail. You’ll get support and mentoring, but you should be comfortable taking ownership, asking good questions, and driving your work forward.

Your Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and optimize backend services and AI-powered workflows in Python
• Work with modern AI tools, APIs, data pipelines, and geospatial intelligence systems
• Contribute to active customer projects with key customers
• Work in a fast-paced environment with ownership and creative freedom
• Work with databases, data catalogues, APIs, and data integration pipelines
• Debug, test, and ensure high reliability and performance of backend systems
• Take ownership of your work in a fast-paced environment with real responsibility

Requirements

• Strong Python skills: you can write clean, modular code and solve problems independently
• Familiarity with Git, APIs, and databases
• Interest in modern AI systems, LLMs, agents, automation, or data-driven applications
• You’ve built something you’re proud of: personal, academic, or experimental
• Able to work independently with limited supervision and strong attention to detail
• Quality-minded: you care about clean code, reliability, testing, and maintainability
• Creative, proactive, and eager to learn
• Enjoy working in a small, collaborative team
• Excellent communication skills in English
• Bonus: Experience with MCP, LLM evaluation, AI research
• Bonus: Experience with Docker, cloud platforms, or production backend systems
• Bonus: Experience with geospatial tools, data, or libraries such as GeoPandas, PostGIS, QGIS, Shapely, GDAL, or similar
• Bonus: German language skills

What We Offer

• Hands-on experience with the newest AI technologies in a real startup environment
• Close collaboration with our technical founders and a strong engineering team
• Direct impact on a real product used by leading companies
• Exposure to real customer problems through active customer projects
• A learning-first environment with mentoring, code reviews, and modern tools
• A dynamic and ambitious startup culture with ownership and creative freedom
• Beautiful office space in Zurich and flexible hybrid work setup
• Competitive internship salary

How to Apply

If you want to learn a lot, work on real AI and geospatial intelligence problems, and contribute to a company that is changing the game of business intelligence, please apply directly via LinkedIn.