Product Builder Intern (Product Engineering)

Our Journey

The Opportunity

ShopBack serves 45M+ shoppers across Asia with cashback, deals and discovery. We are now building the layer on top: Artificial Intelligence (AI)-native shopping experiences that personalise, guide and delight at scale.

This is not your average internship. You will not be handed cosmetic tasks and told to stay in your lane. You will be given real consumer surfaces, an AI-native toolkit, and the expectation that you ship something people use.

This role is technical. Alongside consumer surfaces you will work on the AI infrastructure the design team runs on: the machine-readable layers that let coding agents build on our design system, the evaluation harnesses that score what those agents produce, and the internal tools the rest of the team depends on. Expect more frontend and tool design than traditional design work.

We are looking for someone who sits between product thinking and building. Not an intern who only makes things look right. Not an intern who only writes documents. A builder in training who does both, and who is energised rather than paralysed by an open brief.

You will work alongside a team that has moved past "add AI to the product" and builds AI-first from the ground up, collaborating with product and business teams across 13 markets.

What You'll Own

• Design AI infrastructure. You contribute to the layer between our design system and the agents that consume it: machine-readable component and token definitions, agent skills, evaluation harnesses that score generated output, and the workflows around them.

• Frontend engineering. You write and review the code behind the surfaces and internal tools you work on, and you learn how the client and the data behind it fit together.

• Systems and workflows, not one-off outputs. You learn how the pieces connect, then write up the patterns and decisions behind your own work in formats engineers and AI tools can consume.

• Quality checks on your own AI output. You write the test cases, scoring criteria and failure-mode coverage for the AI-assisted work you ship.

• Hands-on work on a real feature. You own a workstream on a consumer-facing feature, keep the people around you in the loop, and see your decisions reach users. Not a side project parked in a folder.

• Craft you are accountable for. You learn what great looks like at ShopBack and hold that line in your own work under deadline pressure. Localisation, edge cases and interaction detail count, not only the happy path.

• Dedicated mentorship. A named manager and regular exposure to senior builders and product leaders, there to challenge your thinking rather than approve your work.

Who You Are

• Penultimate or final-year student, or a fresh graduate. Any discipline. What you have built matters more than what you studied.

• Aspiring AI builder. You have used AI tools such as Claude Code or Codex not only to speed up your own work, but to build tools or automations.

• Frontend-leaning systems thinker. More drawn to the interface layer than to server-side work, and able to reason about how the pieces connect: what breaks at scale, what happens when a step fails, and who else is affected.

• Problem-solver. Comfortable with ambiguity, solution-centric, and able to identify the real problem rather than only answer the question asked.

• Craft and product, not one or the other. A developing eye for product quality plus the ability to prototype a consumer experience end to end. Your past work explains why you made each choice, not only what you made.

• Clear communicator. Fluent in spoken and written English, able to collaborate with stakeholders and teams across our markets.

• A self-starter mentality. You take initiative, learn fast, and never wait to be told what to do.

• Genuine curiosity about tech, startups, digital commerce or growth businesses.

• Ownership. You take accountability for outcomes, not just for the tasks assigned to you.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing, or recently completed, a Bachelor's degree from a recognised university. Information Systems, Computer Science, Design, or any discipline where you have built things.

• Available for a full-time 6-month internship

• At least one piece of evidence of something you have built, submitted with your application: a portfolio, a personal project, or a link to a public repository

• English proficiency, as the role involves daily collaboration with teams across our markets

How We Work

We build with AI-assisted tools and coding agents. Our design system lives in a form agents read directly, so generation starts from real components and real tokens. What those agents produce runs through automated checks before a person reviews it, and we keep those checks mechanical wherever a machine can decide the answer.

We audit and evaluate regressions and improvements to keep improving our workflow as models and technology continue to advance and evolve together. We are curious and hungry to learn about everything new launched in the industry while keeping things grounded.

ShopBacker Traits

• Agency - We take ownership and act, rather than waiting for permission. When something's blocking progress, we find a way through it and follow through until it's done.
• Judgement - We aim for high-impact decisions, not just easy wins, and we put the bigger picture ahead of individual interests. That means moving quickly and confidently, while staying thoughtful about when a call really matters.
• Learning Velocity - We pick up new skills fast and let go of old habits just as quickly when something better comes along. We benchmark ourselves against the best and keep raising our own bar.
• Tenacity - We stay in it when things get hard, keeping a level head under pressure. We debate openly before deciding, then commit fully — and support each other along the way.

What's in it for ShopBackers

• Career growth opportunities to take on greater challenges that help you realise your ambitions.
• Be part of a winning team on a journey to global scale.
• Competitive compensation based on performance.
• Candid, open, and collaborative culture where feedback is valued.