{"id":3100320,"url":"https://alion.io/job/atoms-mlai-research-internship-phd","title":"AI Research Intern (PhD)","company":{"id":1533,"name":"Atoms","domain":"atoms.co","url":"https://alion.io/company/atoms","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":88,"open_postings":73,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.288,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":60,"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"}},"role":"Early Careers","role_family":"Early Careers","seniority":"intern","employment_type":"internship","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":70,"max":null,"currency":"USD","period":"hour","gross":null,"usd_annual":140000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Diffusion Models","optional":false},{"name":"Embodied AI","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"JAX","optional":false},{"name":"Knowledge Distillation","optional":false},{"name":"Model Distillation","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Transformers","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":false},{"name":"World Models","optional":false},{"name":"DeepSpeed","optional":true},{"name":"FSDP","optional":true},{"name":"Megatron-LM","optional":true},{"name":"Physical AI","optional":true},{"name":"Ray","optional":true},{"name":"Sensor Fusion","optional":true},{"name":"Tokenization","optional":true},{"name":"TPU","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-22T16:48:16Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-27","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T05:30:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":8,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":8},"description":"Who we are\nAtoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress.\nOver the last decade, software has transformed the digital world. But the physical world, where food is made, minerals are mined, goods are moved, and industries are run, remains far less intelligent, far less efficient, and far more constrained. We’re changing that.\nAtoms builds Physical AI real-world robots for the industries that move civilization forward, starting with food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, turning complex physical operations into something more reliable, more scalable, and more productive.\nThis work requires more than robotics. It requires deep integration across hardware, software, AI, operations, manufacturing, and real estate. We don’t just build machines in a lab. We deploy them into real environments, operate them, learn from them, and improve them until they work at scale.\nWe are roboticists, engineers, operators, and builders. We believe the next great technology companies will not only transform information, but the physical systems that shape everyday life.\nIf you want to work on hard problems with real-world impact, join us.\nAbout the Role\nWe are seeking an AI Research Intern to join our founding team and bridge the gap between high-level AI research and real-world physical actuation for our next-generation autonomous transport platforms. In this role, you will contribute to core research initiatives on Perception, World Models and Action models. You will help translate cutting-edge theoretical breakthroughs into scalable, real-world deployment on physical autonomous systems, driving how our platforms perceive, simulate, and navigate complex environments.\nWhat you'll do\nIntegrate emerging research from the broader AI community, identifying and prototyping the most promising solutions.\nDesign and build end-to-end multimodal models that translate real-time visual perception and high-level behavioral goals into physical vehicle actuation.\nResearch and develop cutting-edge RL and distillation techniques for trajectory planning.\nDevelop interactive world models from raw multi-sensor logs, allowing the team to re-simulate events and query what a vehicle would see if it altered its trajectory.\nEnsure core autonomous driving models can seamlessly adapt to novel urban environments and edge cases.\nPartner with validation and research teams to run model experiments through rigorous simulated scenarios, detecting regressions and identifying systemic performance bottlenecks.\nWhat we're looking for\nEducation: Currently enrolled in a PhD degree program in Computer Science, EECS, Robotics, AI, or a closely related field.\n Research Track Record: Publications or active submissions in top-tier AI or robotics venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, RSS, ICRA, CoRL).\n Core Expertise: PhD level research background focused on at least one of the following domains:\nGenerative World Models / Video Generation / Diffusion Models\nVision-Language-Action (VLA) models or embodied AI\nReinforcement Learning (RL), trajectory optimization, or decision-making systems\nLarge-scale multimodal Transformer architectures applied to robotics or spatio-temporal data\nFramework Fluency: Advanced hands-on proficiency with PyTorch or JAX for training and fine-tuning large-scale neural networks.\nProgramming: Proficiency in Python and working knowledge of C++.\nPreferred qualifications\nPrior research or internship experience in autonomous driving, mobile robotics, or spatial AI.\nHands-on experience with Sensor Fusion integrating inputs across multi-camera setups, LiDAR, and Radar.\nFamiliarity with Bird’s-Eye-View (BEV) visual representations, 3D occupancy forecasting, multi-task learning, or specialized data tokenization for spatial data.\nPrior experience with large-scale distributed training on GPU/TPU clusters (e.g., DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM, Ray, or PyTorch FSDP).\nWhy join us\nAt Atoms, you’ll work on one of the defining challenges of our time bringing automation into the physical world to drive real, lasting impact. We exist to uncover valuable unknown truths and turn them into progress, which means constantly pushing beyond what’s known and building what doesn’t yet exist. The work is ambitious and often challenging, but it’s grounded in a shared sense of purpose and a team committed to seeing it through together. Our work only matters if it serves others, and we know that meaningful progress depends on the trust of the people we serve and the strength of our team so we invest in both, creating an environment where you can do your best work and grow.\nWhat else you need to know\nThis role is based in our Mountain View or San Francisco office. Atoms is a company driven by invention and continuous change, we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week.\nThe hourly pay range for this internship role is $70/hr per hour. \nActual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications. \nAtoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis.\nReady to join us as we serve those who serve others?\n#LI-Onsite","description_format":"text","description_chars":5353,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Industrial Automation","Industrial Robotics","Mining & Heavy Industry Robotics"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-22T17:20:21Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":8,"expected_fill_days":60,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:early","comp:junior,brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":140000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/atoms-mlai-research-internship-phd","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/atoms-mlai-research-internship-phd.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-31T06:58:20Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":10302,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1533},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1533"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fatoms-mlai-research-internship-phd"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fatoms-mlai-research-internship-phd"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fatoms-mlai-research-internship-phd"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/atoms-mlai-research-internship-phd\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fatoms-mlai-research-internship-phd"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3100320}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"atoms.co","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3100320},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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