2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Vehicle Intent and Prediction
About this role
The software engineering team at Waymo builds the core intelligence of fully autonomous driving technology, enabling vehicles to perceive surroundings, make safe driving decisions, and transport passengers reliably. This summer internship focuses on the Vehicle Intent and Prediction domain, where the incoming researcher will train and evaluate Loss of Control models, leverage learned models for data quality signals, and design effectiveness measures. Additionally, the intern will develop data pipelines to annotate synthetic training data.
This PhD internship role exists to integrate top academic talent into impactful engineering projects while serving as a key pipeline for future hiring. A strong candidate is a current PhD student with a robust foundation in statistics, mathematics, and machine learning coding in Python who wants to apply advanced research to real-world autonomous systems.
What you will do
- Train and evaluate Loss of Control models to assess the quality impact of implemented changes.
- Leverage existing learned models to derive actionable signals regarding data quality.
- Design and implement measures of effectiveness for data quality signals.
- Develop or augment data pipelines to annotate synthetic training data with specific signals.
What you need
- Must be currently enrolled in a PhD program.
- Demonstrated experience with machine learning coding in Python, such as JAX or PyTorch.
- Strong knowledge of foundational statistics and mathematics.
- Familiarity with neural networks.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with C++, especially in the context of data processing pipelines
- Prior experience with robotics or prediction problems
Benefits
- Eligible to participate in the company's generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the work location policy for this internship?
This will be a hybrid onsite internship position based in Mountain View, California.
What is the pay rate for this role?
The expected hourly rate for this full-time position is $85 USD.
How does the hiring process work?
The company will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, candidates need to apply to each one individually and are asked to apply to their top three choices.