Artificial Intelligence Intern

The Massachusetts Port Authority connects people and businesses to the global community through aviation, maritime, transportation, and enterprise operations. The Artificial Intelligence Intern supports the AI & Innovation team by rapidly designing, building, testing, and demonstrating AI prototypes, applications, automations, and proofs-of-concept using modern models, software tools, cloud platforms, APIs, and open-source technologies.

Responsibilities:

• Assist in designing and building functional AI prototypes, internal tools, automations, and proofs-of-concept addressing Massport business and operational challenges
• Develop applications and scripts primarily using Python and modern software-development frameworks
• Use AI-powered development tools and IDEs such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or comparable technologies to accelerate development, debugging, testing, and documentation
• Explore and adapt open-source projects, libraries, models, and frameworks to rapidly evaluate new technical capabilities
• Build simple web applications, APIs, scripts, and backend services that demonstrate new ideas and workflows
• Participate in rapid development cycles where prototypes are built, demonstrated, evaluated, and improved based on user feedback
• Develop prototypes utilizing commercial frontier models and locally hosted or open-source language models
• Assist in building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications that connect AI models with documents, databases, APIs, and enterprise information
• Gain hands-on experience with technologies including: Large Language Models (LLMs), Small Language Models (SLMs), Open-source models, Embeddings, Vector databases, Semantic search, Prompt engineering, Tool/function calling, AI agents and automated workflows
• Evaluate when different model types are appropriate based on capability, speed, privacy, infrastructure requirements, and cost
• Assist with testing AI systems for accuracy, reliability, usability, and expected behavior
• Research emerging AI technologies, open-source repositories, models, developer frameworks, and tools that may accelerate Massport projects
• Review and understand existing GitHub projects and modify or integrate open-source code for prototype development
• Experiment with new AI frameworks and rapidly determine whether they provide value for a specific use case
• Document technical findings and demonstrate promising technologies to other members of the AI & Innovation team
• Participate in internal innovation activities, technical demonstrations, workshops, and proof-of-concept development
• Assist in developing and testing applications using cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or Amazon Web Services
• Develop and consume REST APIs and other system integrations
• Use Git and GitHub for source control, collaboration, code review, and documentation
• Gain experience with development environments including Linux, containers, Docker, cloud services, and modern deployment workflows
• Follow Massport development, cybersecurity, data-handling, and source-control standards
• Work closely with software developers, solution architects, UI/UX designers, and Massport business stakeholders
• Participate in brainstorming, technical design, code review, testing, and product demonstrations
• Clearly document prototypes, experiments, dependencies, setup instructions, and lessons learned
• Present working prototypes and technical findings to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Seek feedback, experiment with alternative approaches, and continuously improve technical skills
• Assist with testing, debugging, documentation, and maintenance of applications developed by the AI & Innovation team
• Support internal hackathons, innovation workshops, demonstrations, and technical research
• Assist with evaluating new AI models, development tools, open-source projects, and emerging technologies
• Perform other duties as required