PhD Intern, Data Science (2027)

Location: San Francisco or New York hub office, United States; in-person onboarding required

Salary: $68 USD per hour, plus housing stipend and travel reimbursement.

Company

Figma provides a collaborative design platform for brainstorming, prototyping, design-to-code workflows, and real-time teamwork, including AI-powered capabilities.

What you will do

• Partner with product, engineering, design, marketing, sales, and operations teams to define ambiguous data science problems.
• Analyze user, product, and business data to uncover insights and recommend actions.
• Design and evaluate experiments, metrics, statistical and machine learning models, and analytical frameworks.
• Communicate assumptions, tradeoffs, limitations, and recommendations to technical and non-technical partners.
• Own an end-to-end internship project from problem framing and technical execution through final recommendations, with potential for publication.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a PhD in data science, statistics, computer science, HCI, economics, operations research, physics, applied mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
• Demonstrated independent research experience, such as a thesis or equivalent research milestone.
• Fluency in one or more areas including statistics, experimentation, machine learning, causal inference, econometrics, optimization, user research methods, or AI/LLMs.
• Experience with Python or R and proficiency with SQL for analysis, modeling, or complex and large-scale datasets.
• Ability to explain technical concepts clearly and connect analysis to decisions, recommendations, or product and business impact.
• Internship work is based in the San Francisco or New York hub office, with in-person onboarding required.

Nice to have

• Industry or applied research experience in experimental design, causal inference, forecasting, product measurement, user research, or applied machine learning.
• Publications or research relevant to applied data science.
• Experience or interest in AI product measurement, LLM analytics and evaluation, recommendation systems, search, personalization, or AI-powered feature evaluation.

Culture & Benefits

• Learning and development are supported through a growth-oriented culture.
• Housing stipend and travel reimbursement are offered to interns.
• Reasonable accommodations are available throughout the application, interview, and employment process.
• Video interviews require cameras to remain on.