Product & Business Development Intern

Project background

The Future Resilient Internet Exchange (FIREx) is a marketplace for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection built at the Singapore-ETH Centre, the Singapore-based research institute of ETH Zurich. FIREx standardizes and tokenizes DDoS protection infrastructure and provides market for the process of buying and selling those tokens and the settlement up to their provisioning. We collaborate with three industry partners across Singapore and Europe to develop this technology into a real-world product.

The platform is running in a live commercial pilot, supported by a grant from the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. The next phase is turning the pilot into a business customers will pay for, ahead of a planned spin-off in 2027. You will own the commercial thinking for that step: Who pays, how much, and why they keep coming back, working directly with the project lead, the technology lead, and the engineering and design team.

Job description

• Refine the value proposition: Review and refine the product value proposition and ensure it is linked to customer pain points and measurable business value. Identify what keeps participants transacting on the platform rather than going direct.
• Define customer segments and use cases: Support the definition of target customer segments (such as enterprise customers and internet service providers) and their critical use cases, including buyers and seller's requirements.
• Assess product-market fit: Help assess product-market fit hypotheses and define what evidence is needed to validate them. Track that evidence as the pilot and discovery work progress.
• Evaluate business model and pricing options: Assist in evaluating business model options, pricing logic, transaction models, and potential revenue streams. Recommend how different customer types should be charged (fixed price, port-based or percentile billing). Test whether capacity is better reserved in advance or bought on demand, and what customers would pay for faster activation in urgent situations, with guardrails against abuse.
• Map customer journeys: Support the development of customer journeys, service flows, and use cases from a business and product perspective. Cover the full lifecycle from onboarding to monitoring and operations, identify the friction points for each customer segment (enterprise, ISP/service-provider and seller and maintain the list of gaps.
• Run product discovery with providers and buyers: Plan and run workshops, scenario questionnaires and interviews with partnering vencors and prospective buyers to validate the initial problem hypotheses and to find any that are missing. Consolidate the answers into prioritised use cases, and translate them into product requirements and user stories with the UI/UX designer and engineers, separating what is needed now from what can wait.
• Draft the trust standards: Draft provider vetting criteria (for example test results, references, and country of incorporation) and standard service-level-agreements and evidence-of-delivery templates, for review with technical and legal colleagues.
• Define how services are traded and activated: Document how buyers describe a requirement (by location or by the destination to protect), which information is mandatory and which can be decided later, and how multi-location orders and partial fulfilment should work. Record capacity lead times and time to go live for each location, and the options for always-on versus on-demand traffic diversion.
• Define operating, monitoring and fallback requirements: Specify the monitoring, alerts and dashboards buyers and sellers need, the records required for invoicing and reporting, and what evidence resolves a dispute. Define how users reach the platform and each other when an attack limits normal internet access (for example API, out-of-band channel or phone escalation).
• Benchmark the market and build the pipeline: Benchmark competing offers and pricing, maintain the market-sizing assumptions, and build a pipeline of prospective sellers and buyers (ISPs, data centre operators, resellers, enterprises).
• Capture pilot learnings: Turn pilot results into case studies, and support pitch decks and funding-readiness inputs for the spin-off.

Selection Criteria

• Matriculated (Bachelor / Master / PhD) throughout the internship period at a Singapore university
• Studying business, economics, information systems or a related field
• Knowledge of business model and pricing fundamentals (B2B, platforms or marketplaces) is a plus
• Proficiency in Excel or financial modelling is a plus
• Interest in cybersecurity or internet infrastructure is a plus (no technical background is needed)
• Ability and willingness to efficiently communicate with 3rd party stakeholders (industry collaborators, prospective customers)

Why SEC is your employer of choice?

• Accredited with 5 Tripartite Standards by Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) Singapore.
• A diverse workplace with 32 nationalities, offering ample opportunities for mutual learning.
• Positive and inclusive working environment.
• 25 days of annual leave for fixed-term contracts.
• 1 day of Birthday Leave.
• Annual dental benefits.
• Committed to being a supportive employer as you prioritize your physical and mental wellness.
• Comprehensive healthcare insurance coverage.
• Flexible hybrid work arrangement (up to 2 days per week from home).
• Abundant networking opportunities across various disciplines.
• Accredited with NS mark certification.

The Singapore-ETH Centre is an equal opportunity and family-friendly employer. All candidates will be evaluated on their merits and qualifications, without regards to gender, race, age or religion.

Curious? So are we.

We look forward to receiving your online application with the following documents:

• Cover letter with a specific statement of your motivation for the project.
• CV, including the name and contact information of 2 references.
• A copy of your university transcripts as PDFs.

Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

Work location: 1 Create Way, CREATE Tower, Singapore 138602 (NUS University Town)

Internship Duration: 3-7 months

Further information about the Singapore-ETH Centre can be found on our website: https://sec.ethz.ch/

For further information, please contact: Dr. Felix KOTTMANN (Singapore-ETH Centre) at felix.kottmann@sec.ethz.ch, (strictly no applications)