AI Research Intern: Foundation Models (Robotics)

Location: Los Angeles, California, United States; on-site

Salary: $40–$50 per hour

Company

hirify.global is a Physical AI company developing adaptive robotic systems and Factory SuperIntelligence for industrial manufacturing through a Robots-as-a-Service model.

What you will do

• Develop next-generation foundation models for high-precision manufacturing and robotic manipulation.
• Work with multimodal data, including vision and force signals.
• Own project lifecycles spanning data curation, simulation, model training, evaluation, and robot deployment.
• Validate models on real industrial robots and production parts.
• Research complex, ambiguous problems and deliver solutions on accelerated timelines.
• Write maintainable, production-quality code for internal R&D.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Robotics, AI, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• Research experience with foundation models for robot manipulation.
• Proficiency in Python and at least one deep learning framework; PyTorch is preferred.
• Strong knowledge of current world-model and foundation-model research.
• Experience with robotics simulation or physics-based modeling, such as Isaac Lab or MuJoCo.
• Experience with reinforcement learning, imitation learning, policy optimization, robotics middleware such as ROS/ROS2, and deployment on real robotic hardware.

Nice to have

• Experience with VLA or VLM training.
• Experience with industrial manipulators and research deployed in industrial environments.
• Publication record in venues such as ICRA, CoRL, RSS, IROS, RA-L, or T-RO.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on physical AI systems already operating in active production environments.
• Collaborate across AI, robotics software, solutions engineering, process engineering, hardware, and deployment teams.
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• Unlimited paid time off and a 401(k) plan with employer matching.
• Regular offsite events and a discretionary productivity fund.