SAP Product & Engineering Operations & Strategy iXp Intern - Developer Experience Research

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.

What You’ll Build

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.

The SAP Internship Experience Program is SAP’s global, strategic, paid internship program that provides university students with opportunities to find purpose in their careers. This is more than an internship, it’s the foundation for a career built on connection, creativity, and impact.

As a Developer Experience PhD Intern, you will work with SAP’s Developer Experience team to explore how generative AI and large language models can improve developer workflows for enterprise software systems. Your work will focus on building, running, and evaluating intelligent developer tools for ABAP code transformation, modernization, and translation to other programming languages.

You will collaborate with engineers and researchers to design and prototype AI-powered solutions that support developers in understanding, transforming, and migrating complex enterprise codebases. This role may also contribute to research findings and technical publications based on experimental results.

• AI-powered Developer Tools: Design and prototype tools that use generative AI and large language models to assist developers with ABAP code understanding, transformation, and translation tasks.

• Code Transformation & Translation: Explore AI-driven approaches for transforming ABAP code and translating ABAP applications to other programming languages in support of modernization efforts.

• Tool Execution & Evaluation: Run experimental tools and workflows, collect results, and evaluate their effectiveness on real-world enterprise development tasks.

• Prototype Development: Build experimental systems and workflows that demonstrate how AI can enhance the developer experience for enterprise application development and migration.

• Experimentation & Research: Design and conduct empirical studies to assess AI-driven developer tools, analyze outcomes, and contribute to research insights and potential publications.

• Collaboration: Work closely with engineers and researchers to translate ideas into practical tools, evaluations, and capabilities that support SAP developers.

What You’ll Bring

We’re looking for someone who is curious, technically strong, and passionate about improving the SAP-specific developer experience through intelligent tooling and applied AI.

Education:

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field
• Technical Skills:
• Experience working with large language models (LLMs) or generative AI systems
• Strong programming skills in Python, or another modern programming language
• Familiarity with machine learning or deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow
• Understanding of software engineering concepts, including program analysis, refactoring, or code transformation
• Interest or experience in AI for software engineering, developer tooling, or automated code migration
• Problem Solving & Research Skills:
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to design experiments and evaluate AI-driven systems
• Interest in applying research ideas to real-world developer workflows and tools
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate with engineers and researchers
• Proven track record of writing and publishing peer-reviewed research articles

Where You Belong

Be part of SAP Next Gen, a global community for students, universities, schools and educational partners, who are passionate about innovation and technology.

1. Culture of Collaboration: Partner with experienced SAP colleagues and expert mentors who will support your growth. Grow professionally through personalized mentoring, coaching, and career development support.

1. Project-driven Experience: Kickstart your career with hands-on learning experience, making an impact from day one by contributing to meaningful projects that help the world run better. You’ll have endless learning resources at your fingertips and gain future-ready skills from a variety of virtual, in-person, and hybrid learning sessions, cultivated just for you, and aligned with our learning approach.

1. Gain Visibility: Build relationships with leaders and peers across teams and functions. Showcase your ideas, skills, and creativity in a global, fast-paced environment. Open doors for future career opportunities within SAP and beyond.

Meet the Team

The Developer Experience team within SAP’s Product & Engineering Operations & Strategy unit sets the direction on how SAP will be developing enterprise software in future and thus is pivotal for SAP’s development and product strategy. It’s on the team to provide our global development organization with the best-possible environment to collaboratively deliver the world's #1 enterprise applications to customers in an AI-first and Suite-first manner. The team’s success is rooted on a strong collaboration with stakeholders across all board areas at SAP as well as with industry peers and world-renown academic partners.

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, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability.

Compensation Range Transparency: SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 0 - 0(USD) USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits.

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: 448884 | Work Area: Administration | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Student | Employment Type: Limited Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid