Research Scientist Intern, 3D-grounded Generalist Model for Robotics (PhD)

Meta; Redmond; On-site; AUD 20,000 - 33,000; Full time

Job summary

Meta Reality Labs Research Team seeks exceptional Research Scientist interns to contribute to fundamental research on 3D-grounded generalist models for robotics. Interns will tackle cutting‑edge challenges, design model architectures and training recipes, and help deliver general robotics policies for real‑world environments.

Projects may cover data pipelines for 3D understanding, interactive generalist policies with real‑time performance, and validating policies in simulation and on robots,

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD in computer vision, robotics, ML, computer graphics, or related field.
• Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire.
• Demonstrated knowledge of and hands‑on experience with robotics policy training.
• Demonstrated knowledge of and hands‑on experience with large‑scale 3D data pipeline & curation for robotics or foundation model training.
• Hands‑on experience implementing large foundation models and generative architectures (e.g., LLMs, VLMs, video diffusion models, world (action) models, VLAs, and reinforcement learning).
• Experience with Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
• Strong programming experience using Python and PyTorch.
• Demonstrated software engineering experience via previous internships, work experience, coding competitions, or contributions to open‑source repositories (e.g., GitHub).

Responsibilities

• Contribute to fundamental research on 3D-grounded generalist models for robotics.
• Tackle cutting‑edge research challenges and design model architectures and training recipes.
• Help deliver general robotics policies for real‑world environments.
• Validate policies in simulation and on real robots, aiming for a live hardware demonstration when possible.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Robotics policy training

Foundation models

3D data pipeline

Communication

Open-source

Education

PhD in computer vision, robotics, ML, or related field

Tools

Python

PyTorch

GitHub

ROS

Job description

The Meta Reality Labs Research Team brings together a world‑class team of researchers, developers, and engineers to create the future of contextual AI and robotics.

The Surreal Vision group at RL Research is seeking exceptional Research Scientist interns to contribute to fundamental research on 3D-grounded generalist models for robotics. These models will form the foundation to enable accurate and efficient zero‑shot general robotic manipulation in daily environments. As a research intern, you will tackle cutting‑edge research challenges, innovate model architectures and training recipes, and deliver general robotics policies.

Your research project may cover or relate to the following topics:

• Generating and delivering effective data and training recipes to significantly improve the 3D/spatial understanding of large-scale foundation models.
• Developing generalist robotics policies based on large-scale 3D foundation models with interactive/real‑time performance.
• Validating the developed robotics policies both in simulation and on real robots, with the stretch goal of delivering a live demonstration on physical hardware.

Our internships are twelve (12) to twenty‑four (24) weeks long and we have various start dates throughout the year. Some projects may require a minimum of 24 consecutive weeks.

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining, a PhD in computer vision, robotics, machine learning, computer graphics, or a related field
• Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment
• Demonstrated knowledge of and hands‑on experience with robotics policy training
• Demonstrated knowledge of and hands‑on experience with large‑scale 3D data pipeline & curation for robotics or foundation model training
• Hands‑on experience implementing large foundation models and generative architectures (e.g., LLMs, VLMs, video diffusion models, world (action) models, VLAs, and reinforcement learning)
• Experience with Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch
• Ability to commit to 24 consecutive weeks of full‑time internship work
• Proven track record of achieving significant research results, demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, or first‑authored publications (ideally with publicly available code) at premier conferences and workshops (e.g., CoRL/RSS/ICRA/IROS, CVPR/ECCV/ICCV, NeurIPS/ICLR/ICML, SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia, etc)
• Strong research background in robotics policy training, large foundation models (VLM/LLM), world (action) model, video diffusion models, neural 4D reconstruction & rendering
• Strong programming experience using Python and PyTorch
• Demonstrated software engineering experience via previous internships, work experience, coding competitions, or contributions to open‑source repositories (e.g., GitHub)
• Experience collaborating and communicating cross‑functionally in a team environment
• Intent to return to a degree program upon completion of the internship