AI Internship: Self-Hosted LLMs for Data Migration

Location: Zurich, Switzerland

We are ELCA, one of the largest Swiss IT tribe with over 2,300 experts. We are multicultural with offices in Switzerland, Spain, France, Vietnam and Mauritius. Since 1968, our team of engineers, business analysts, software architects, designers and consultants provide tailor-made and standardized solutions to support the digital transformation of major public administrations and private companies in Switzerland. Our activity spans across multiples fields of leading-edge technologies such as AI, Machine & Deep learning, BI/BD, RPA, Blockchain, IoT and CyberSecurity.

In this 6-month internship starting in Spring 2027, you'll test whether sovereign, locally-run AI can reliably scope complex legacy data migrations so our clients can get accurate fixed-price offers.

Your tasks

• Benchmark open-source LLMs that can be self-hosted on sovereign infrastructure against leading cloud models on three migration-scoping tasks: understanding schemas, extracting business rules and assessing data quality.
• Deploy and run candidate models locally with tools such as Ollama, vLLM or Hugging Face, and see how sovereign AI works in practice.
• Design and build a prototype agentic pipeline that analyzes legacy schemas, code and sample data on its own.
• Uncover hidden business rules in legacy systems, including .NET-based applications, that often only show up after in-depth analysis.
• Validate data consistency and quality, and assess the complexity of a representative legacy migration case.
• Generate automated effort and complexity estimates, along with step-by-step migration guidelines, from a locally-run model.
• Define criteria and best practices for when a local model is accurate enough to replace manual scoping in fixed-price migration bids.
• Evaluate and document the resource, cost and licensing trade-offs between self-hosted and cloud models.
• Shape how we scope one of our most frequently fixed-price-quoted services for clients with strict data sovereignty needs.
   

What we offer

• A dynamic, collaborative workplace with a highly motivated, multicultural team working across international sites
• Monthly AI meetups with our expert AI team, where you can ask questions and move your topic forward
• The chance to make a difference in people's lives by building innovative solutions
• Internal coding events such as Hackathons and Brownbag sessions, plus our technical blog
• Monthly After-Works organized at each location
   

About your profile

• You have a Bachelor or Master degree (EPFL, ETH, University) in Computer Science or related discipline
• You are comfortable programming in Python and SQL, and ideally have some familiarity with .NET-based systems
• You have worked with LLMs and, ideally, tried deploying them locally (e.g. Ollama, vLLM, Hugging Face)
• You are curious about agentic AI and keen to build and benchmark your own pipeline
• You have a basic understanding of database schemas and data quality
• You like to work in a structured way and to share your findings clearly
• You are fluent in written and spoken English, as well as German or French

Application: Please attach your academic transcripts to your application. Applications without transcripts will not be reviewed.

We believe in strong values and are convinced that diversity is the key to success. If you take on challenges with curiosity, motivation and drive, you've come to the right place! Let our motto inspire you: We make it work!