Internship : Advanced Privacy-Preserving Mechanisms for LLMs - F/M

Job Description

We help the world run better
At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

Duration: 6 months

Start date: Feb 2026

In accordance with the French legislation, for any duration over 2 months, this internship is paid in line with the SAP gratification grid.

What you'll do

You will work on bleeding-edge techniques to analyze, decompose and steer LLMs. Your objective is to design how to use LLM capabilities to interpret user input and react when privacy-relevant information is processed.

Leveraging on previous works and activities conducted at SAP using interpretability approaches like monosemantic feature extraction with Sparse AutoEncoders (SAE), transformer circuits from Anthropic and Google, the internship will investigate mechanistic interpretability and latest state-of-the-art methods to design new approaches to the identification of textual sentences that can leak personal data, such as political options, religious beliefs, sexual preferences etc. In particular, the internship will comprise:

• Application and replication of recent studies on mechanistic interpretability on real and synthetic datasets.
• Design of approaches to enhance privacy guarantees of individuals, by detecting personal data in social media contents, business communications etc.
• Design of context-dependent approaches to anonymize sensitive personal data, without compromising as much as possible on data integrity and utility.
• Create clear documentation for evaluated approaches, with the aim of producing a scientific article.

What you will bring

• University Level: Last year of MSc in Computer Science or beyond

• Strong interest in reading/producing scientific articles

• Strong Python development skills

• Natural Language Processing (NLP) Knowledge

• Machine Learning Knowledge

• Fluency in English (working language)

• Good oral and written communication skills

Meet your team

Customers rely on SAP delivering trustworthy secure products. The “Secure AI Center of Excellence” is responsible for the SAP Secure Software Development and Operations Lifecycle and the respective Product Standard Security and Data Protection, with special attention to AI activities.

The team is driving an automation assisted approach in significantly reducing security risks emerging during software and AI development.

Bring out your best
SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion
SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.

SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.

For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements.

Successful candidates might be required to undergo a background verification with an external vendor.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process.

Please note that any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.

Requisition ID: 438138 | Work Area: Software-Research | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Student | Employment Type: Limited Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid