2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning Research

AI in this role

pytorchtensorflowjax

ai-research

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

Software Engineering builds the brains of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our software allows the Waymo Driver to perceive the world around it, make the right decision for every situation, and deliver people safely to their destinations. We think deeply and solve complex technical challenges in areas like robotics, perception, decision-making and deep learning, while collaborating with hardware and systems engineers. If you’re a software engineer or researcher who’s curious and passionate about Level 4 autonomous driving, we'd like to meet you.

The subteam for this role will be:

The Predictive Planning team (PrePlan) develops and deploys state of the art machine learning solutions that predicts the future State of the world and plan the Waymo Driver's Behavior. Our mission is to transform Waymo's unprecedented scale of driving data into robust, generalizable, and perform at deep neural networks. These models enable the autonomous vehicle to navigate complex environments safely and efficiently.

Waymo interns partner with leaders in the industry on projects that create impact to the company. We believe learning is a two-way street: applying your knowledge while providing you with opportunities to expand your skill-set. Interns are an important part of our culture and our recruiting pipeline. Join us at Waymo for a fun and rewarding internship!

You will:

Research, implement, and evaluate state-of-the-art generative models for planning and predictions using JAX
Conduct machine learning models experiments
Product high-quality, thoroughly tested code
Collaborate with research, product, and engineering teams to introduce new research concepts

You have:

Currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or related field
Experience with deep learning, or reinforcement learning
Hands-on experience with modern deep learning libraries (eg: TensorFlow, JAX, Pytorch) with basic programming skills (eg: Python, C/C++)
Strong analytical and debugging skills

We prefer:

Publications in top-tier conferences such as: ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, IROS, CoRL, ACL, or EMNLP
Prior software development or research industry experience (including internships)

General Perks

Help solve challenging problems with a direct impact on the company
Competitive compensation packages with a housing/relocation bonus (if applicable)
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Fun intern events and networking opportunities

Onsite Perks

Free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks
Free access to Google shuttles
Onsite gym

Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position. We will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, you will need to apply to each one individually - please apply to the top 3 roles you are interested in.

The expected hourly rate for this full-time position is listed below. Interns are also eligible to participate in the Company’s generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements.Hourly PhD Pay$85—$85 USD

How we rate this

2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning Research at Waymo rates 96 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

AI ResearchPyTorchTensorFlowJax

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
Walk me through how you've used PyTorch in your day-to-day work.
What are the limits of TensorFlow that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
What's a project where you used Jax hands-on?
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI Research, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Jax. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them — a tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped — this role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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