Every summer, Two Sigma opens its doors to a diverse, dynamic group of interns—from freshmen just starting their journeys to PhD students advancing the frontier of quantitative research.
2025’s 10-week program featured interns from 26 universities. They explored everything from trading systems to machine learning, user experience, and infrastructure. Their stories paint a vivid picture of life as a Two Sigma intern: an opportunity where curiosity, collaboration, and technical rigor meet real-world impact.
Here, we spotlight some of the summer’s highlights through the voices of our interns themselves.
Tackling Complex Technical Challenges
Interns at Two Sigma aren’t observers; they learn, but they also build.
Sean, a Computer Science major from Georgia Tech who has interned here three times, spent his summer working on Sigma’s low-latency trading system, picking up skills in Rust, queuing theory, and open-ended problem-solving along the way. His efforts weren’t just theoretical: “My first project helped shorten model release times and reduce system crashes caused by full queues. My second project helped free up multiple trading machines for models that are latency-sensitive.”
Bellamy, a Computer Science major who joined us from the University of Minnesota, took on the ambitious task of re-architecting an internal yield curve-related service. “Almost everything I touched this summer was an opportunity to learn something new,” he says. “From understanding various fixed income instruments, to the company’s extensive internal tooling and engineering products.”
But that learning paid off: “On my second-to-last week, I successfully deployed the new service to production, and the benefits were immediately clear.”
I learned a lot about what implementing AI solutions actually looks like in practice at a company that is at the forefront of technology and research.
For Ameya, the challenge was automation. A Mathematics major at Yale, he built LLM tooling to streamline error-prone workflows for a data analysis team. “I learned a lot about what implementing AI solutions actually looks like in practice at a company that is at the forefront of technology and research.”
The demand for his tool was clear, he adds, from the feedback he received from users over Slack and other channels.
Learning, Adapting, and Growing
Internships at Two Sigma are designed to stretch interns’ knowledge, and part of that is ensuring lots of interaction with colleagues both senior and junior. The 2025 program featured participation by roughly 150 managers and mentors, to set the interns up for success.
Audrey, a CS and Applied Math undergrad at Washington University, worked on a project focused on transitioning internal tools to a new platform and implementing a custom job validation engine. “Some of the biggest things I learned were broader, widely transferable skills in engineering—writing maintainable code, technical communication, project planning, and navigating longer-term design decisions in collaboration with stakeholders.”
Ali, a CS undergrad who joined us from Minerva University, dove deep into systems engineering, monitoring Cron usage and exploring operating systems. He notes how big a role learning played in his internship: “I learned so much about how operating systems work (particularly Linux) and different layers of systems engineering. This knowledge was so new to me, and I really enjoyed the experience.”
Some of the biggest things I learned were broader, widely transferrable skills in engineering—writing maintainable code, technical communication, project planning, and navigating longer-term design decisions in collaboration with stakeholders.
Meanwhile, Bridget, a CS major who joined us from Harvard, honed her skills in design thinking, building a dashboard that transformed how users access and complete tasks. “Beyond expanding my technical skills, I developed stronger design thinking skills by thoroughly assessing options and evaluating tradeoffs before moving to implementation.” The experience, she added, enhanced her ability to problem-solve independently.
Arya, a CS PhD candidate at University of Kansas, also found growth through engaging with stakeholders across the firm: “I improved my collaboration skills by working closely with multiple teams and applying their feedback into my work. This experience taught me how to communicate effectively across diverse groups and ensure my contributions aligned with broader organizational goals.”
He adds that he also gained practical experience applying her academic research to real-world scenarios, thanks to the computational resources available at Two Sigma.
Making a Lasting Impact
At Two Sigma, interns work alongside experienced professionals and across teams, building products and performing research with real applications whose impact will last long after intern season is over.
Arya’s project involved using LLMs in the context of modeling & trading, and required constant cross-team communication: “My manager and team excelled at identifying projects that align with the firm’s needs to be sure that our tasks were relevant and actionable,” he says. “Throughout the internship, we held regular meetings to gather feedback and refine the project, which made the final deliverables more impactful.”
For Zhexiao, a Statistics PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, his experience on one of the modeling & trading teams was similarly collaborative and meaningful. “Working on my project, I built a deeper understanding of financial data and gained valuable economic intuition related to trading. I also had the opportunity to apply my previous knowledge of statistical methodologies to real-world applications, which I found very exciting.”
Finally, Edward, who is working on his Bachelor’s/Master’s in Mathematics at MIT, helped drive more advanced applications of machine learning on the team he worked for. “My academic interests lie in the intersection of machine learning and statistics, and it was a lovely time getting to implement a ML model from scratch and apply theory to this very practical setting.”
Interns as Catalysts for Progress
This summer, Two Sigma’s interns drove innovation, learned from challenges, collaborated across boundaries, and delivered results that matter to the firm and our clients. Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play; interns participated in more than 80 different activities, from bowling and Broadway shows to lunches with senior leaders.
As one intern reminisced, “They were incredibly welcoming, insightful, and approachable, which made a lasting impression on me.”
The interns’ stories remind us that curiosity, technical skill, and a willingness to tackle hard problems are among the most valuable ingredients for success at Two Sigma. We congratulate them on their achievements—and look forward to what they’ll build next.
Interested in joining Two Sigma as an intern in 2026? Learn more here.
