Founder's & Executive Office
/Learn at the frontier
Strategic Research Intern
Strategic research supports the decisions that are hard to reverse — whether to build, buy, or partner, which segment to enter next, and what would have to be true for a plan to work at all.
Engagement
Internship
Structured, hands-on mentorship for a fixed term. This internship is on site at Kolkata, with hybrid days available by prior arrangement. It is not a remote position.
Scope of role
Contribute to live projects. Shadow senior practitioners. Build a portfolio that matters.
Please note this is an unpaid internship — the offer is real work, mentorship and experience at the frontier, not a stipend.
01 — The role
Why this role exists at EduRankAI
EduRankAI is developing next-generation technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Education Technology, Research, Product Engineering, and Digital Innovation. Strategic research supports the decisions that are hard to reverse — whether to build, buy, or partner, which segment to enter next, and what would have to be true for a plan to work at all. You will hold a small number of named questions at a time, each running for several weeks, and the output is a decision memo rather than a deck. The discipline that defines this role is the written pre-mortem: before recommending a course of action, you set down what would make it fail and what early signal would tell us it is failing. Work is confidential by default and is reviewed directly by the executive office.
02 — The work
What you will own
- 01 Take a named strategic question, scope it into researchable sub-questions, and agree upfront which decision it must inform.
- 02 Build the evidence base for build, buy, and partner options, including what each option costs and what it forecloses.
- 03 Write decision memos that state the recommendation first, then the reasoning, then the supporting evidence.
- 04 Run a written pre-mortem for every recommendation, covering the failure modes and the earliest observable warning signs.
- 05 Maintain a register of past strategic decisions and revisit them against what actually happened.
- 06 Research regulatory, structural, and demographic shifts that could invalidate the assumptions behind current plans.
- 07 Prepare briefing notes ahead of executive discussions and capture the decisions taken afterwards.
- 08 Handle all material as confidential and follow the information-handling rules of the executive office.
03 — The expertise
What we look for
04 — The bar
Who thrives here
- → Students pursuing undergraduate or postgraduate programs from any discipline are encouraged to apply; students from the disciplines listed under Specialisation are especially encouraged.
- → Available for a full-time, 6-day-per-week internship for the stated duration.
- → This role handles confidential internal material; a signed confidentiality undertaking is a condition of the internship.
Learning Outcomes
What you will practically learn
Qualification (UG / PG)
- ·BBA/B.Com
- ·MBA/PGDM
- ·Any Bachelor's Degree
- ·Any Relevant Degree
Specialisation
Perks
What you get, beyond the work itself
- Internship Certificate
- Letter of Recommendation (Performance Based)
- Mentorship from experienced professionals in the field
- Exposure to real product, research, and operational work — not simulated exercises
- Skill Development Workshops
- Outstanding performers may be considered for extended internships, leadership opportunities, or future full-time roles based on organizational requirements.
Terms of Engagement
How this internship is structured
6 days a week, about 40 hours of total engagement — 5 hours a day of project work and departmental responsibilities, plus 1 hour 40 minutes a day of holistic well-being and personal development.
Type
Full-Time
Working days
6 per week
Rest days
1 per week
Total engagement
~40 hrs/week
Project work
5h per day
Well-being
1h 40m per day
Duration
12 weeks
Positions
2
Project work and departmental responsibilities and holistic well-being and personal development together make up the total engagement above — the total is not all task output. Well-being time covers physical fitness, mindfulness, reading, reflective learning, leadership development and community engagement. About 480 hours of total engagement over 12 weeks — 360 hours of project work and 120 hours of well-being and personal development.
Measured by
Weekly mentor review against a published rubric, plus the completion of the recorded hours. Working materially over the commitment is treated the same as working under it.
Where this stands legally
Offered under the applicable AICTE internship framework, where one academic credit corresponds to a minimum of 45 hours of work — which is why these hours are counted and certified. The engagement sits well inside the 9-hour day and 48-hour week ceiling of the applicable state Shops and Establishments Act, and the seventh day is a full rest day.
At a minimum of 45 hours of work per academic credit, this engagement is equivalent to roughly 10.7 credits. Your institution decides what it awards; EduRankAI records the hours and the work.
The full per-level model is published at Working Hours by Level.
- · Interns are expected to maintain professionalism, creativity, confidentiality, and timely completion of assigned responsibilities.
- · Weekly mentor reviews and evaluations will be conducted.
- · Compliance with organizational policies, intellectual property guidelines, and ethical standards is mandatory.
- · Internship Certificate will be awarded upon successful completion of internship requirements.
- · Internship does not constitute an offer of employment.
05 — Hiring process
What to expect after you apply
- 01
Application review
Every application is read personally within five business days. We respond either way.
- 02
Take-home or live exercise
Role-specific. Time-boxed. Real problems we are actually working on, not invented puzzles.
- 03
Conversations
Deep technical and values conversations with the team you would join. No trick questions. No panel ambushes.
- 04
Offer or honest no
If yes: digital offer letter, signed in-portal, transparent terms. If no: written feedback if you want it.
Before you start
What we will collect. What it costs. What we will not do with it.
We will collect
- Name, email, phone — Account + application updates. No marketing.
- Resume / portfolio link — Human review of your work.
- Date + place of birth — Identity verification only.
- Your written responses — Selection rubric. Read by humans.
- Government ID (later) — Anti-fraud at offer / interview stage. Not at signup.
We will never
- Sell your data
- Share with third-party recruiters
- Use for advertising
- Train models on it
- Send marketing email
Our situation
EduRankAI is a small, independent organization building long-term capabilities in educational intelligence, advanced AI systems, and research infrastructure. We take no advertiser money, no donations with strings attached, and no investor pressure on hiring decisions. Applying is free, and every application is read by a human — recruitment, technical, academic and leadership teams. It buys us the right to be honest.
Ready to apply?
We read every application personally. If you are the right person for this role — regardless of pedigree, background, or where you are based — you will hear back from us within five business days.
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