Software Engineering Intern (Summer 2026)
About the role
Summer internship role at Candle focusing on end-to-end feature shipping, backend and frontend optimization, and working with founders. Hybrid in San Francisco, CA.
Responsibilities
- Ship fast: Own and ship features end-to-end, used by thousands within hours.
- Scale infra: Help design and optimize systems that can handle millions of notifications, messages, AI inference at scale, and daily interactions
- Optimize performance: Identify bottlenecks, improve reliability, and make Candle feel seamless at scale.
- Bring perspective: Work directly with founders and exited founders (Apple, Twitter, NASA engineers, Forbes 30u30 ), contributing new ideas and white boarding solutions to hard problems.
- User impact: Every line of code directly affects couples and friends relying on Candle to stay close and stay in touch.
- Sample projects include: overhauling daily notification jobs into a separate reliable microservice, designing real-time features like a collaborative canvas or a walkie talkie, creating a content recommendation algorithm.
Qualifications
- You're a student (or recent grad) excited by viral consumer products and fast shipping cycles
- Strong experience with TypeScript and mobile frameworks like React Native (Expo); Swift is optional but a plus
- Interest in both backend optimization and user-facing polish
- Curious, self-driven, relentlessly resourceful
- Entrepreneurial background and shipped/published apps (optional but preferred)
- Willingness to work in a hybrid schedule in San Francisco, 3 days in-person per week
Skills
Benefits
- Competitive internship compensation: $6.5K - $9K per month
- Hybrid in San Francisco: 3 days in-person per week
- Exposure to founders and YC-backed startups
- Opportunity to impact a consumer product used by millions
About Candle
Candle helps couples and friends grow closer daily in just 5 minutes.
Most relationships, romantic or platonic, don’t end in one moment, they drift apart over time. Missed check-ins, surface-level conversations, busy lives, and routines replace real connection. Candle helps couples and friends stay close through 1-minute daily rituals that bring back presence, play, and curiosity. Candle gives couples and friends a daily, low-pressure game designed to create emotional momentum: the most essential, and often most neglected, ingredient in long-term connection. What started as a swipeable questions game has grown into a full platform and private space for your relationship: - Daily Prompts & Games: Thoughtful, funny, and unexpected questions, couple quizzes, audio and photo challenges that update and adapt monthly - Shared Canvas Widget: Leave notes, doodles, or drawings right on each other’s home screen - Now in beta: Date Ideas Swiping**: Get 60 curated date ideas based on your area (yes, even San Francisco :)), updated weekly. Swipe to match on what you both want to try. From pop-up events to hidden gems, it’s the easiest way to try something new together or even with friends or family! We’d love feedback here! - Streaks & Shared Progress — Build accountability and a shared rhythm - Adaptive Decks: Smarter, more relevant questions over time - Shared Photo Albums & Memories: Keep track of all your photos and logged memories
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