Micro-Intern: Software Engineer (IAP - Alumni Host)

About the Company

Cartesian is building spatial intelligence for indoor environments to drive operational efficiency.

We’re tackling one of the biggest challenges in the $35T global retail industry: in-store inventory visibility. Our platform delivers accurate indoor positioning and actionable product location insights, helping retailers streamline operations, optimize workflows, and reduce inefficiencies. By fusing wireless signals and mobile computer vision, we provide a uniquely scalable and infrastructure-free solution already deployed by international fashion brands.

Founded by an MIT engineering professor and alum behind the award-winning, patented core technologies, Cartesian spun out in 2023. Since then, we’ve bootstrapped to a live product, secured a competitive SBIR grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, deployed in multiple countries, and begun generating customer revenue.

About the Role

We are scaling up our platform and developing new features to meet product demand. We are looking for a motivated software engineering intern to help us build reliable, performant, and scalable foundations for our product. We are seeking individuals who want to see how to design and develop new technology in a startup environment. You will work alongside the co-founder and senior engineers and ship code to real customers.

This role is on-site. Our office is right in Kendall Square by the Red Line stop.

What You’ll Do

At the beginning of IAP, we will define a specific project you will have ownership and responsibility for during internship duration. This will require learning extremely fast, operating with ambiguity, and iterating on feedback each week. The project will likely combine many of the following:

• Design and test out optimizations that reduce server load

• Prototype backend tooling and frontend dashboards to help onboard and support more customers

• Ship bug fixes and refactor pipelines to improve reliability and performance

• Implement new features and customer requests

About You

• Strong Coder (Python): You can write software to solve problems effectively, whether it’s diving into bugs, refactoring pipelines, or just testing out new ideas.

• Independent, High-Ownership: You are able to take a task, break it down, solve it with minimal oversight. You make sure work is completed, even if you hit roadblocks.

• Fast, Driven Learner: You like digging deep into unfamiliar territory, and you quickly pick up new skills along the way.

Interview Process

• Screen (15 min): Sync on the role and your interests.

• Project Discussion (45 min): Show us something cool you’ve built. Explain your decisions, and what you learned.

• Offer

Salary: 20 - 25 USD an hour