Autonomy RL Research Intern — Drones & Robotics

Speedrun Talent Network; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 54,000 - 80,000; Part time

Job summary

Skydio, the leading US drone company, invites PhD students to join our internship program focused on reinforcement learning and autonomous flight.

You will develop RL methods, train policies for navigation and obstacle avoidance, and build sim-to-real pipelines using Isaac Lab, MuJoCo, and PyBullet.

Collaborate across perception, mapping, controls, and product teams, with real hardware tests and safety-conscious deployment.

Qualifications

• PhD student in Robotics, ML, Controls, or related field.
• Strong fundamentals in RL, control theory, and motion planning.
• Proficient in Python (PyTorch/JAX/Ray RLlib) and at least one of C++ or CUDA.
• Hands-on experience with robotics simulation (Isaac Lab/MuJoCo/PyBullet) and sim2real techniques.
• Experience training/deploying policies for navigation, manipulation, or locomotion on real robots or autonomous vehicles.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy RL methods for drone autonomy.
• Train policies for navigation and obstacle avoidance.
• Build sim-to-real pipelines with domain randomization and safety filters.
• Collaborate with perception, mapping, controls, and product teams to close the loop.

Skills

RL fundamentals

Control theory

Motion planning

Python PyTorch/JAX

C++ or CUDA

Education

PhD candidate in Robotics/ML/Controls or related field

Tools

Isaac Lab

MuJoCo

PyBullet

Job description

Skydio, the leading US drone company, invites PhD students to join our internship program focused on reinforcement learning and autonomous flight.

You will develop RL methods, train policies for navigation and obstacle avoidance, and build sim-to-real pipelines using Isaac Lab, MuJoCo, and PyBullet.

Collaborate across perception, mapping, controls, and product teams, with real hardware tests and safety-conscious deployment.