Planning and Engineering Internship Program
The SFMTA Planning and Engineering Internship Program is aimed at students pursuing degrees related to transportation planning and transportation engineering. Interns join teams within the Agency’s Streets, Transit, and Taxis, Access, and Mobility Services (TAMS) divisions to work on projects that help residents and visitors of San Francisco get where they need to be safely and equitably.
Planning and Engineering interns generally work on the following teams:
| Planning Teams | Engineering Teams |
|---|---|
|
|
Interns participate in transportation planning and engineering activities including:
- Designing and implementing transportation safety improvements and multimodal complete streets
- Performing community outreach and engagement, responding to community requests for transportation improvements
- Coordinating with other city agencies, contractors and communities on transportation-related projects
- Field trips and seminars to learn about various teams within the agency
Instructions on how to apply:
Step 1. Visit careers.sf.gov
Step 2. Enter ‘intern’ in the search box to find a list of the intern positions
Step 3. Choose which SFMTA intern position/s you are interested in and submit an application. Be sure you meet the criteria for each individual position that you are applying for.
The deadline to apply is January 9, 2023
-
City staff who went through the intern program pose with Bond Yee, former head of the Streets Division, at his retirement celebration in 2014. -
The 2016 interns get a tour of the cable car barn. -
The 2018 interns tour the construction site at West Portal Station for the Twin Peaks Tunnel Improvement Project. -
The 2018 interns learn about outreach and engagement at Forest Hill Station for the Twin Peaks Tunnel Improvement Project. -
The 2019 interns tour the Salesforce Transit Center.
Details
The Planning and Engineering Internship Program is one of many internship opportunities offered by the City and County of San Francisco. Each summer, the Agency welcomes anywhere from twenty to forty students interested in transportation planning and transportation engineering.
Interns are generally assigned to a planning or engineering role within a team for the duration of the summer. The internship takes place between May and September with varying start dates. To supplement the work experience, the Intern Committee programs content such as weekly field trips and seminars for interns to get a sense of the various aspects of transportation-related work that the Agency does for the people of San Francisco.
Other SFMTA workgroups also welcome interns, including Cable Car, Maintenance of Way and Finance and Information Technology. For more information about the City’s internship opportunities, visit the San Francisco Student Intern Program website.
History
The internship program started in 1989 as a response to the City’s Early Retirement Program, a budget-saving measure resulting in many of the agency’s most senior staff taking advantage and retiring. At that time, the agency made a collective and strategic decision to replenish the staffing through the internship program. Over the past 30 years, the internship program has been immensely successful in fulfilling our workload needs as well as being an effective tool for recruitment and retention. Over 500 emerging professionals have participated in the program, gaining experience as civil servants in transportation engineering and transportation planning in San Francisco. Almost half of our planners and engineers are former interns.