Interested in this Prompt Engineer role at CACI International?
Apply Now →Skills & Technologies
About This Role
Job Title: AI Prompt Engineer High School Intern - Summer 2027 Job Category: Intern/Co-op Time Type: Part time Minimum Clearance Required to Start: None Employee Type: Part-Time On-Call Percentage of Travel Required: None Type of Travel: None
- * *
The Opportunity:
Are you a high school student graduating in June 2027? We have an exciting, paid internship opportunity for you! Join our dynamic Agile Solution Factory (ASF) team as an i ntern starting in July 2027 and ending in September 2027 for a 3-month program with the potential to transition to a full-time position.
You’ll work alongside experienced software delivery personnel and mentors who will teach you how software is designed, built, and maintained through our ASF delivery model — all while learning valuable teamwork and problem-solving skills. Gain hands-on experience in software development and maintenance within an ASF product team, delivering releasable software in short sprint cycles for mission-critical border enforcement and homeland security management capabilities.
Collaborate closely with software developers, engineers, stakeholders, and end users to ensure the successful delivery of secure software solutions for mission critical applications. This is a chance to explore a career in technology and learn what it’s like to work in software development — no college degree or prior IT work experience required.
Responsibilities:
- Learn and become certified in our ASF delivery execution model
- Learn how to utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and AI prompt engineering to support processes across our ASF delivery model
- Learn how software is developed, tested and delivered through our ASF under the guidance of experienced personnel
- Work as part of an ASF product team, supporting teammates and helping with tasks, including leveraging AI to help develop user stories from requirements, test cases, and creating user documentation or training materials
- Participate in real project activities such as release planning meetings, sprint reviews, and software product demonstrations to see how teams iteratively build and improve software products together
- Explore how new technologies and automation tools are used in the software development and delivery process — including AI
- Help improve existing software by testing features, identifying bugs, and suggesting ideas for improvement
- Learn about software development, data, cybersecurity and systems architecture, and how they support the delivery of mission-critical systems
- Develop professional and communication skills, learning how to share ideas, give feedback, and collaborate effectively in a technical environment
Qualifications:
Required
- Must be a U.S. citizen and 18 years of age or older by July 2, 2027 , due to federal security requirements
- Must be able to pass a background investigation, including checks for felony convictions (3 years), recent illegal drug use (1 year), and misconduct such as theft or fraud (1 year) to obtain a government clearance
- Currently enrolled in high school (senior year) and on track to graduate by June 2027
- Strong interest in technology, problem solving, and software development — no prior job experience in the IT industry is required, but curiosity and motivation to learn are essential.
- Good communication and teamwork skills — able to effectively ask questions, share ideas and collaborate with others both verbally and in writing
- Familiarity with computers and logical thinking, whether from coursework (e.g., computer science, math, or robotics) or self-learning (e.g., online tutorials, coding clubs, or personal projects)
- Willingness to learn programming fundamentals and tools used in modern software development
Desired
- Exposure to leveraging AI technologies, including AI chat tools (like ChatGPT) and AI prompt engineering to return desired results
- Exposure to any programming language (such as Python, JavaScript, or Java) or low code development platforms (such as Microsoft PowerApps)
- Exposure to using any database tools, reporting platforms (such as Microsoft Power BI), or collaboration tools (such as Microsoft SharePoint)
- Participation in STEM clubs, coding competitions, or personal coding projects
- Interest in emerging technologies and how IT and software can help solve real-world problems
*
What You Can Expect:
A culture of integrity.
At CACI, we place character and innovation at the center of everything we do. As a valued team member, you’ll be part of a high-performing group dedicated to our customer’s missions and driven by a higher purpose – to ensure the safety of our nation.
An environment of trust.
CACI values the unique contributions that every employee brings to our company and our customers - every day. You’ll have the autonomy to take the time you need through a unique flexible time off benefit and have access to robust learning resources to make your ambitions a reality.
A focus on continuous growth.
Together, we will advance our nation's most critical missions, build on our lengthy track record of business success, and find opportunities to break new ground — in your career and in our legacy.
Pay Range :
There are a host of factors that can influence final salary including, but not limited to, geographic location, Federal Government contract labor categories and contract wage rates, relevant prior work experience, specific skills and competencies, education, and certifications. Our employees value the flexibility at CACI that allows them to balance quality work and their personal lives. We offer competitive compensation, benefits and learning and development opportunities. Our broad and competitive mix of benefits options is designed to support and protect employees and their families. At CACI, you will receive comprehensive benefits such as; healthcare, wellness, financial, retirement, family support, continuing education, and time off benefits.
The proposed salary range for this position is:
$39,400 - $75,900 CACI is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected characteristic.
Role Details
About This Role
Prompt Engineers design, test, and optimize interactions with large language models. They build evaluation frameworks, craft system prompts, and develop techniques like chain-of-thought and few-shot learning to get consistent, reliable outputs. The role emerged alongside the GPT-3 era and has matured into a legitimate engineering discipline, not the 'just talk to the AI' job that early skeptics dismissed.
The work is more systematic than creative. You're running hundreds of prompt variations through evaluation suites, measuring output quality across edge cases, and building guardrails for production systems. When a prompt works 95% of the time but fails catastrophically on the other 5%, you need to find those failure modes and fix them before they hit users.
Across the 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, Prompt Engineer positions make up 0% of the market. At CACI International, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Prompt engineering roles are still growing but the market is maturing. Early roles were broad and experimental. Now, companies know what they want: someone who can systematically improve LLM output quality, reduce costs by optimizing token usage, and build evaluation infrastructure. The roles that survive will be the ones that look more like engineering than copywriting.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week involves designing evaluation datasets for new use cases, benchmarking prompt strategies against each other with statistical rigor, working with product teams to define 'good enough' output quality, and building the tooling that lets non-technical teammates iterate on prompts safely. You'll spend more time in spreadsheets and evaluation dashboards than you'd expect.
Prompt engineering roles are still growing but the market is maturing. Early roles were broad and experimental. Now, companies know what they want: someone who can systematically improve LLM output quality, reduce costs by optimizing token usage, and build evaluation infrastructure. The roles that survive will be the ones that look more like engineering than copywriting.
Skills Required
The core requirement is deep LLM experience: prompt design, RAG architectures, and evaluation methodology. Python is table stakes. Many roles also want experience with specific providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, or open-source models. Understanding tokenization, context windows, and the practical differences between model families (reasoning ability, instruction following, output format compliance) separates strong candidates from the crowd.
Evaluation skills are becoming the differentiator. Can you design a rubric that measures output quality? Can you build automated evaluation pipelines? Do you understand when to use human evaluation vs. LLM-as-judge vs. deterministic checks? Companies are moving past 'vibes-based' prompt testing and want engineers who bring measurement discipline.
Strong postings specify the LLM use cases (summarization, extraction, classification, generation), the evaluation methodology they expect, and the production environment. Weak postings just say 'prompt engineering experience' without context. Look for companies that mention evaluation frameworks and production deployment.
Compensation Benchmarks
Prompt Engineer roles pay a median of $141,440 based on 27 positions with disclosed compensation. Entry-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $110,408. This role's midpoint ($57K) sits 59% below the category median. Disclosed range: $39K to $75K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.
CACI International AI Hiring
CACI International has 10 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Prompt Engineer, Data Scientist. Positions span King of Prussia, PA, US, Denver, CO, US, Ashburn, VA, US. Compensation range: $75K - $252K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (568 positions) offer remote work, while 9,010 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,413 roles, $264,500 median); Los Angeles (1,340 roles, $210,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into Prompt Engineer roles include Technical Writer, NLP Researcher, Software Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward AI Product Manager, LLM Engineer, AI Solutions Architect.
The best prompt engineers come from technical backgrounds and add LLM expertise, not the other way around. If you're coming from a non-technical role, invest heavily in Python, evaluation methodology, and understanding how LLMs work under the hood (tokenization, attention, context windows). The role will increasingly merge with LLM Engineering as the tools mature.
What to Expect in Interviews
Interviews focus on evaluation methodology and systematic thinking. You'll likely be asked to design a prompt for a specific use case, explain how you'd measure output quality, and walk through how you'd debug a prompt that works 90% of the time but fails on edge cases. Expect to discuss tokenization, context window management, and the tradeoffs between different prompting strategies (few-shot vs. chain-of-thought vs. tool use).
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings specify the LLM use cases (summarization, extraction, classification, generation), the evaluation methodology they expect, and the production environment. Weak postings just say 'prompt engineering experience' without context. Look for companies that mention evaluation frameworks and production deployment.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).
Prompt engineering roles are still growing but the market is maturing. Early roles were broad and experimental. Now, companies know what they want: someone who can systematically improve LLM output quality, reduce costs by optimizing token usage, and build evaluation infrastructure. The roles that survive will be the ones that look more like engineering than copywriting.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence
Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.