AI/ML Engineering Intern - Behavioral Safety (m/f/d)

Synapticon; Schönaich; On-site; EUR 11,160 - 16,740; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Company support for gym memberships

Birthday vouchers

Free drinks and coffee

Snacks and fruit for all employees

Breakfast every Monday

Global team-building events

International team with long-term prospects

Supportive colleagues

Modern office space

Job summary

Synapticon is looking for a motivated AI/ML Engineering Intern to join their Safety AI team in Schönaich, Germany. This internship offers a unique opportunity to apply machine learning to real-world challenges in humanoid robotics, focusing on semantic intent recognition and AI-based fall strategies.

The ideal candidate is an MSc student with strong skills in PyTorch and integration of ML inference in real-time contexts. The role involves prototyping, developing, and testing AI safety strategies.

Qualifications

• MSc student with a research mindset and rigorous evaluation skills.
• Strong foundation in mathematics related to machine learning.
• Experience integrating ML inference pipelines with real-time control.

Responsibilities

• Prototype multimodal foundation model integration for robot safety context.
• Develop and test AI fall strategy controllers.
• Implement ML model inference in the robot control loop.
• Benchmark behavioral safety classifiers for intent recognition.
• Build AI safety behavior evaluation frameworks.

Skills

PyTorch skills

Hands-on RL experience

Integration with ROS2

Foundation model fine-tuning

Mathematics (linear algebra, optimization, probability)

Education

Enrolled MSc student in Machine Learning, Computer Science, or Robotics

Job description

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We're looking for a motivated AI/ML Engineering Intern (ideally 6 months, mandatory internship) to join our Safety AI team in Schönaich (close to Stuttgart), with a flexible start date. If you're excited about applying machine learning to genuinely open research questions in humanoid robotics — from semantic intent recognition to AI-based fall strategies — this is a rare opportunity to do research with a direct path to product.

HERE'S WHERE YOU MAKE AN IMPACT

• Prototype multimodal foundation model integration for robot safety context — exploring how large-scale models can give robots semantic awareness of their environment and the people in it
• Develop and test AI-based fall strategy controllers, working on one of the more genuinely open research questions in humanoid deployment
• Implement ML model inference in the robot control loop — bridging the gap between research models and the timing constraints of real-time robot software
• Benchmark behavioral safety classifiers for semantic intent recognition in simulation, building the evidence base for what these models can and can't reliably distinguish in deployment
• Build evaluation frameworks for AI safety behaviour aligned with ISO/IEC TR 5469 — contributing to a principled, documented approach to assessing AI in safety-relevant contexts

WHO YOU ARE

• Enrolled MSc student in Machine Learning, Computer Science, or Robotics — with a research mindset and the discipline to support it with rigorous, reproducible evaluation
• Strong PyTorch skills; hands-on RL experience using Stable Baselines3, Isaac Lab, or similar frameworks — you've trained policies and analysed why they fail, not just run examples
• You've integrated ML inference pipelines with ROS2 — or are confident you can make it work cleanly in a real-time control context
• Experience with foundation model fine-tuning is a strong plus — this work involves adapting large models for a specific purpose, not just deploying them off the shelf
• You're interested in safety-critical AI — not as a compliance checkbox, but as a genuinely hard technical and methodological problem
• Strong mathematical foundation across linear algebra, optimisation, and probability — you're comfortable with the theory behind what you implement

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU

• Flexible working hours when life takes unexpected turns
• Company support for gym memberships through Wellpass
• Birthday vouchers
• Drinks and coffee (free of charge, of course)
• Snacks and fruit for all employees, as well as breakfast every Monday
• Regular global team-building events such as boot camps, skiing, and summer BBQs
• An international team with long-term prospects
• Highly competent colleagues who are experts in their field and happy to support you in your learning and growth
• Modern office space
• Our company's WG (upon availability)