Text Blaze, a Y Combinator-backed company (W21) known for its text-expansion tool with over 700,000 users, has opened applications for a summer internship with an unusual rule: no AI usage of any kind. The program, called the “No AI Summer” internship, is designed for late-college or early-career candidates who want to build full-stack engineering skills without relying on large language models (LLMs).
What the internship entails
Interns will work on Text Blaze's core product — a tool that automates repetitive typing via smart templates, placeholders, logic, dynamic fields, and integrations with other apps. The tech stack is primarily JavaScript, with some Python. React is the main web front end, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) serves as the cloud provider.
The company explicitly states that interns are not allowed to use AI at all during the summer. The stated goal: “We want to train you, not LLMs, to become an excellent full-stack engineer.” The internship is full-time and remote-friendly, with a global hiring scope.
Why ban AI?
Text Blaze does not oppose AI in general — the company uses AI extensively in its own product suite and acknowledges that AI tools can provide a “double-digit productivity improvement.” However, the company argues that the industry has developed an over-reliance on AI tools that limits the growth of junior engineers. The reasoning is that once tasks move beyond simple, well-defined problems, over-reliance on AI leads to poor-quality work and wasted time for all involved.
The internship is therefore a deliberate countermeasure: a focused period where interns must solve problems without AI assistance, developing critical thinking and hands-on skills.
Application requirements
Applicants must submit a short cover letter or note — no longer than five sentences — that includes:
- A coding project they are proud of, with a link
- An impressive achievement (academic, coding-related, business-related, or personal)
- How they would take advantage of the “No AI Summer”
The company is also hiring for senior roles separately.
Tradeoffs
The approach has clear tradeoffs. On one hand, it forces interns to develop deep understanding of fundamentals — debugging, architecture decisions, and code quality — without the crutch of AI-generated code. On the other hand, it means interns will not learn how to effectively use AI tools that are becoming standard in many engineering workflows. The company acknowledges this tension: they use AI themselves but believe the internship period is better spent building foundational skills.
Bottom line
Text Blaze's “No AI Summer” internship is a practical experiment in reversing the trend of AI-dependent coding education. For junior engineers who want to build core skills without shortcuts, it offers a structured environment to do so. The application is straightforward, and the company is transparent about its reasoning. Whether this model gains traction elsewhere will depend on how well these interns perform compared to their AI-assisted peers.