PhD Research Intern, Offline Driving Intelligence (AI)

TL;DR

PhD Research Intern (AI/ML): Developing multi-agent simulation and agent policies that behave like humans in driving environments with an accent on large-scale reinforcement and imitation learning. Focus on solving open research problems and integrating novel research into production simulation systems.

Location: On-site in Foster City, CA, Bay Area, or Seattle, WA. Relocation is required for the duration of the internship.

Salary: $9,500 per month

Company

hirify.global is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market.

What you will do

• Develop state-of-the-art agent policies for driving simulation environments.
• Tackle open research problems at the frontier of large-scale reinforcement and imitation learning.
• Contribute to publishable research in the field of ML-Agents.
• Collaborate with mentors to address major open research questions facing the team.
• Implement novel research findings into the production simulation system that tests autonomous driving software.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a Ph.D. or advanced degree in a relevant engineering program.
• Ability to relocate to the Bay Area, CA or Seattle, WA for the duration of the internship.
• Able to commit to a 12-week internship during Summer 2026 cohorts (May-September).
• Experience with imitation learning (behavior cloning and closed-loop methods) and online reinforcement learning.
• Advanced proficiency in Python, PyTorch, and Jax.
• Proven track record of publications in top ML/robotics conferences such as NeurIPS, CVPR, or ICRA.

Nice to have

• Experience with autonomous driving or robotics planning.
• Knowledge of inverse reinforcement learning.
• Experience with multi-agent reinforcement learning.

Culture & Benefits

• Monthly compensation of $9,500.
• Medical insurance and housing stipend.
• Relocation assistance offered based on eligibility.
• Direct mentorship from experienced researchers in the field.
• Opportunity to see research applied directly to production software.