Research Scientist Intern, Robot Learning & Manipulation (Spring, Summer & Fall 2027) | Master’s & PhD Internship (Robotics)

Location: Irvine, California, United States; on-site

Company

hirify.global develops risk-aware, reliable, field-ready embodied AI systems for real robots, sensors, and physical deployments.

What you will do

• Develop robot manipulation capabilities for meaningful physical tasks in real environments.
• Investigate skill transfer across objects, tasks, environments, and robot platforms.
• Address uncertainty, contact dynamics, changing conditions, and failure recovery.
• Design experiments measuring task success, generalization, and reliability outside controlled laboratory settings.
• Integrate and validate research on humanoids, mobile manipulators, and arm-equipped quadrupeds.
• Document findings, present results, and contribute to publications, code, datasets, or reusable research tools.

Requirements

• Current enrollment in a master’s or PhD program in robotics, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, AI/ML, or a related field.
• Research experience in robotic manipulation, robot learning, embodied AI, or a related area.
• Strong research or open-source track record through publications, research software, or technically rigorous projects.
• Strong foundations in robotics, machine learning, and experimental design.
• Proficiency in Python and/or C++.
• Ability to work independently, communicate findings clearly, and collaborate across research and engineering disciplines.

Nice to have

• First-author publications at leading robotics or machine learning venues and journals.
• Significant contributions to open-source robotics or machine learning projects.
• Experience taking research from an initial idea to reliable operation on physical robots.
• Experience with robot integration, sensing, control, data collection infrastructure, or real-world system evaluation.

Culture & Benefits

• Research projects are grounded in customer use cases and real deployment problems.
• Close collaboration with researchers and engineers across robot learning, perception, control, hardware, and deployment.
• Opportunity to own a focused research project from implementation through experimentation and hardware validation.
• Access to physical robots and feedback from real operational failures and observations.
• Internship terms are available in spring, summer, and fall 2027.