{"id":1213669,"url":"https://alion.io/job/intuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern","title":"AI Research Intern","company":{"id":3128,"name":"Intuitive Surgical","domain":"intuitive.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/intuitive","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SmartRecruiters","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":67,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.985,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":28,"computed_at":"2026-10-15T05:46:00Z"}},"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":["Sunnyvale, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":50000,"max_usd":84000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":346},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"Imitation Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":true},{"name":"DPO","optional":true},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":true},{"name":"Hugging Face","optional":true},{"name":"LangChain","optional":true},{"name":"LlamaIndex","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":true},{"name":"Quantization","optional":true},{"name":"RAG","optional":true},{"name":"RLHF","optional":true},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":true},{"name":"VLM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T22:36:51Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-24","last_verified_at":"2026-10-15T15:36:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":20,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":20},"description":"It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies-like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion -have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.\nWe’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.\nThe problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful-because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.\nIf you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.\n Primary Function of Position\nWe are seeking a self-motivated intern to support our AI Research and Development team in projects focused on developing a variety of AI foundation models based on multi-modal surgical data. This unique role focuses on the application of cutting-edge Visual-Language-Action (VLA) models and advanced robot learning techniques to enhance the capabilities of the da Vinci surgical system. The ideal candidate will bridge the gap between large-scale multimodal AI research and practical, high-impact applications in a safety-critical medical domain.\nEssential Job Duties\n Conduct research and development on AI technology for surgical robotics, specifically integrating visual data (endoscopic video), surgical context (language/data), and precise robotic actions (instrument control).\n Develop and implement novel algorithms for VLA models focused on surgical scene understanding, procedure phase recognition, and learning from expert demonstrations (e.g., imitation learning) to improve system guidance and automation features.\nAnalyze and process large, real-world surgical datasets from the da Vinci system to train and evaluate AI models.\nValidate models using both internal simulation platforms and, where appropriate, physical da Vinci systems, adhering to strict quality and regulatory protocols.\nCollaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and potentially even clinicians/surgeons, to translate research prototypes into robust, testable software solutions.\nDocument research outcomes and contribute to technical reports and internal documentation, with potential opportunities for patent filings or conference submissions. \n Required Skills and Experience\nUniversity Hiring Program Eligibility Requirements:\nUniversity Enrollment: Must be currently enrolled in and returning to an accredited degree-seeking academic program in the Fall.\nInternship Work Period: Must be available to work starting January 2027 and full-time (approximately 40 hours per week) during a 10-12 week period. Specific start dates are shared during the recruiting process.\nRequired Education and Training\nCurrent enrollment in an Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Robotics with emphasis on AI, Machine Learning and Computer Vision or related degree-seeking program at the Master’s or Doctorate level.\nPreferred Skills and Experience\nPublications in top-tier conferences/journals\nExperience building systems based on machine learning and/or deep learning methods.\nStrong hands-on Python skills.\nStrong hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks such PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Caffe.\nGood hands-on experience with the state-of-the-art deep learning models for language modelling and text retrieval of structured and unstructured text.\nGood hands-on experience with open-source LLM models and libraries (HuggingFace, LLaMa, LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc).\nSelf-starter and able to work in a collaborative and results oriented environment.\n(Preferred) Experience extending and innovating on LLM/AI agent techniques. Experience in one or more of RLHF, DPO, finetuning, RAG, CoT, and multi-agent reasoning.\n(Preferred) Experience with model quantization, LLM edge hardware deployment, prompt engineering, and/or data synthesis. \nRobotics, action models, large language models (LLM), visual language models (VLM)\n Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19. Details can vary by role.\nIntuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, without regard to race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, religion, protected veteran or disability status, genetic information or any other status protected under federal, state, or local applicable laws.\nMandatory Notices\nU.S. Export Controls Disclaimer: In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR §743.13(b)), some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employees who are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.\nCertain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the government’s licensing process can take 3 to 6+ months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (“TCP”) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).\nFor any Intuitive role subject to export controls, final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employee’s start date, which may or may not be flexible, and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable, candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes.\nWe will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.\nAccommodation & Accessibility Notice:\nIntuitive is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance or an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please contact People Services at .\nWe provide market-competitive compensation packages, inclusive of base pay (paid at an hourly rate), benefits, and a housing allowance. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role, as actual pay will be determined based on several factors, including relevant skills and experience for this internship, degree-seeking academic program (PhD, Master’s, Bachelor’s, etc), year in school, and location. The hourly rate is prorated against the intern program salaries listed and total program compensation will be based on internship duration.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7085,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Medical & Healthcare Robotics"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T06:13:45Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 251 · green card filings: 131","filings_12m":251,"filings_prev_12m":325,"green_card_filings_12m":131,"median_offered_wage_usd":158521,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-15T11:24:14+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":38,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.511,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":20,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:late","comp:junior,brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-15T05:46:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/intuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/intuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-15T18:33:28Z","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":28172,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-16T00:00:00Z"}},"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":3128},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3128"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fintuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern"},{"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%2Fintuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern"},{"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%2Fintuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern"},{"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/intuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fintuitive-surgical-ai-research-intern"}]}