Staples is business to business. You are what binds us together.

We are seeking a graduate level student for a Performance Engineering Intern to join our team with a focus on AI-level Performance Engineering (PaCE) Intern to join our team with a focus on -level Performance Engineering (PaCE) Intern to join our team with a focus on AI automation and performance intelligence. This role offers enabled automation and performance intelligence. This role offers -enabled automation and performance intelligence. This role offers hands-on experience improving the scalability, efficiency, and resilience of Staples’ critical digital platforms by automating performance testing, analyzing large scale telemetry, and applying AI scale telemetry, and applying -scale telemetry, and applying AI techniques to accelerate performance insights and driven techniques to accelerate performance insights and decision-driven techniques to accelerate performance insights and decision-making.

Target Start Date: June 1, 2026 - August 14, 2026 (11-week program)   

What you bring to the table:

• Performance Mindset – motivated by understanding system behavior under load and ensuring platforms perform reliably at scale.
• Automation First – strong interest in eliminating manual performance testing and analysis through scripting, frameworks, and intelligent automation.
• Analytical Thinker – curious about metrics, trends, baselines, and anomalies, and how data can be transformed into actionable insights.
• Collaborative – able to work closely with application engineers, SREs, platform teams, and enterprise tools partners.
• Continuous Learner – eager to explore modern performance engineering practices and AI-assisted analysis techniques.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Build and enhance automated performance testing frameworks and workflows to improve repeatability, coverage, and efficiency
• Apply AI/ML or LLM-based-based approaches to performance data for tasks such as test run summarization, baseline comparison, anomaly detection, and insight generation
• Work with performance and observability signals, including response times, throughput, error rates, logs, and infrastructure metrics
• Develop scripts, tools, or services using languages such as Python, Java, or JavaScript to support performance testing, data analysis, and reporting
• Assist in analyzing performance test results and communicating findings clearly to engineering and platform teams
• Contribute to performance testing pipelines integrated with Git-based workflows and CI/CD processes

What’s needed – Basic Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, or a related field
• Strong foundation in software engineering fundamentals, data analysis, and system performance concepts
• Proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language, such as Python or Java
• Comfort working in Linux -based environments and using Git for version control

What's needed - Preferred Qualifications:

• Exposure to performance engineering concepts such as load testing, stress testing, scalability analysis, and capacity planning
• Interest or academic experience in applying AI/ML techniques to analytics, automation, or engineering workflows
• Interest in agentic AI concepts and how LLM-driven assistants can help automate engineering workflows.
• Familiarity with or interest in monitoring/observability tools like Splunk, New Relic, Azure Monitor, and similar platforms
• Experience or coursework related to test automation, CI/CD pipelines, or observability platforms
• Familiarity with cloud-based systems, distributed architectures, or containerized environments 

Staples is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.