About the role
We help the world run better
At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.
What You'll Build
The SAP Internship Experience Program is SAP's global, strategic, paid internship program that provides university students with opportunities to find purpose in their careers. This is more than an internship, it's the foundation for a career built on connection, creativity, and impact.
Position Title: SAP iXp Intern - Site Speed Performance
Location: Newtown Square, PA
Anticipated Start Date: October 2026
Contract Duration: 6 to 12 months
Work Hours: Full-time internship – 40 hours per week
The SAP.com Digital Platforms Team is seeking a Site Speed Performance Intern to support fast, seamless experiences across desktop, mobile, and automated crawler environments. Reporting to the Product Owner for Site Speed Performance and Optimization, you will analyze performance data, investigate front-end and rendering bottlenecks, support synthetic and real-user monitoring, and help identify measurable optimization opportunities for both human users and AI-powered search and discovery systems.
You will also help advance AI-assisted performance workflows by using large language models and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations to streamline testing, diagnostics, reporting, and regression analysis. This is a technical analysis and liaison role connecting SAP IT Development with business stakeholders across SAP Global Marketing. Hands-on production development is not required, but curiosity about front-end technology, web performance, bot rendering, crawler optimization, and AI-enabled automation is essential.
Core Responsibilities
Performance Testing and Analysis
- Conduct synthetic and real-user performance testing using platforms such as Catchpoint and Akamai mPulse, and help evaluate future RUM capabilities.
- Analyze Core Web Vitals and related performance data using Chrome UX Report data and SAP.com Grafana dashboards to identify trends and regressions.
- Investigate front-end and rendering bottlenecks using Chrome DevTools and software-as-a-service (SaaS) performance platforms.
- Document findings and recommend optimization opportunities to product and development teams.
Bot and Crawler Performance
- Monitor Prerender.io bot traffic, rendering usage, and crawler performance for SAP.com and SAP.cn.
- Help analyze crawler errors, CDN routing rules, robots.txt directives, and custom user-agent traffic, and identify opportunities to reduce 404 responses.
- Support efforts to improve bot rendering efficiency and content accessibility.
- Support proof-of-concept projects designed to improve the performance of SAP crawlers and custom user-agent traffic.
AI-Assisted Workflows
- Explore SAP-approved generative AI and MCP-enabled tools for test-script generation, diagnostic analysis, and reporting.
- Identify opportunities to replace repetitive manual analysis with scalable, AI-assisted workflows.
- Review AI-generated findings and validate them against performance data.
Collaboration and Documentation
- Collaborate with product owners, developers, UX teams, analysts, and external partners.
- Maintain performance documentation, dashboards, and internal knowledge resources.
- Stay informed about web performance standards, tools, and emerging technologies.
- Support the creation and publication of internal customer success stories on the team's SharePoint site.
What You'll Bring
A curious and agile mindset, with a passion for learning and the resilience to adapt in a fast-paced, evolving environment. Strong problem-solving and creative thinking skills, with the ability to collaborate across teams and communicate ideas clearly and effectively. Emotional intelligence and cultural awareness that support inclusive teamwork and thoughtful stakeholder engagement. A growing foundation in business acumen and emerging technologies — especially artificial intelligence — paired with a results-oriented approach and the courage to take initiative.
Eligibility: Must be currently enrolled, or recently graduated (start date must be within 6 months of graduation date) from a coding academy/bootcamp, apprenticeship, associate, bachelor's, master's or JD/PhD program.
Skills and Qualifications
Web Foundations
- Basic understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, responsive design, and how modern websites are delivered and rendered.
- Familiarity with browser developer tools, particularly Chrome DevTools, or a strong interest in learning web performance analysis.
- Awareness of web performance concepts such as Core Web Vitals, accessibility, front-end rendering, and asset optimization.
AI and Emerging Technology Literacy
- Curiosity about AI-assisted workflows, automated crawlers, search technologies, and their relationship to web performance.
- Strong interest in learning how large language models, retrieval systems, vector databases, AI agents, and agentic orchestration work together.
- Interest in using generative AI and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations to support testing, diagnostics, analysis, and workflow automation.
- Ability to evaluate AI-generated findings critically and validate them against technical data.
UX and Visual Design Fundamentals
- Familiarity with Figma for reviewing prototypes, design specifications, and AI-assisted UX concepts.
- Basic understanding of responsive design, usability, accessibility, and visual design principles.
- Familiarity with Adobe Creative Cloud applications used to create and optimize bitm