Data Science Intern (Applied AI) - Summer 2025

Who We Are:

Zynga is a global leader in interactive entertainment with a mission to connect the world through games and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO). With massive global reach in more than 175 countries and regions, the combined diverse portfolio of popular game franchises has been downloaded more than 6 billion times on mobile, including Star Wars™: Hunters, CSR Racing™, Dragon City, Empires & Puzzles™, FarmVille™, Golf Rival™, Hair Challenge™, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells™, High Heels!™, Merge Dragons!™, Merge Magic!™, Monster Legends, Toon Blast™, Top Eleven, Toy Blast™, Two Dots, Words With Friends™, and Zynga Poker™.Founded in 2007, Zynga is headquartered in California with locations in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.zynga.com or follow Zynga on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or the Zynga blog

Position Overview:

Zynga’s Applied AI group focuses on developing innovative ways to tackle problems within the game development process, demonstrating directly the ways that AI can improve the creativity and productivity of team members across Zynga and the wider Take Two organization. Our team is multi-disciplinary, and includes engineers, data scientists and product managers among others. We build cloud-based tools and technologies to support every aspect of the development process, from concept development through to live ops and publishing operations.

To be successful in this role you should have curiosity about the areas of game development, artificial intelligence and computational creativity, be a proactive learner, have good depth in technical skills, and a strong desire to build high quality software that delivers value and efficiency.

What You’ll Do:

• Contribute directly and immediately to advancing one of our ongoing projects
• Write well-crafted, efficient and testable code and algorithms
• Plan and implement tasks of small to medium scale independently
• Communicate effectively and efficiently in a collaborative, distributed team environment
• Work with team members across disciplines to design and implement AI-driven systems

What You Bring:

The following are required for this internship:

• Currently pursuing a graduate degree (Ph.D.) in AI, with focus on AI for games or computational creativity 
• A robust understanding of principles of AI, and its uses for procedural content generation and game development
• Familiarity with Python, and one of: Javascript / Typescript or C# / Unity
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure principles - AWS preferred
• Ability to quickly learn new technologies and systems as needed
• Desire to learn and share knowledge with peers
• Strong communications and collaboration skills

Bonus Points:

• Prior experience building AI systems for games, procedural content generation, or computational creativity
• Familiarity with principles of game design and implementation

What We Offer You:

• Daily lunches, tons of snacks and beverages 
• Zynga happy hours and frequent employee events
• Flexible working hours on many teams
• Casual dress every single day
• Culture of diversity and inclusion including employee resource groups
• Work with cool people and impact millions of daily players

 

The pay for this position in California/Colorado/ New York/Illinois at the start of employment is expected to be $41- $48 per hour. 

However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. If hired, employee will be in an 'at-will position' and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization.  Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic – not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at accommodationrequest@zynga.com to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.

Please be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others.  Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel.  Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage.  Zynga’s  in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).