2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning, Simulation Realism

Waymo LLC; Greater London; On-site; GBP 72,000 - 88,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid onsite internship

Generous benefits programs

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a PhD candidate for a hybrid onsite internship focused on advancing autonomous driving software. You will work on adversarial simulation agents, foundation models, and world models, collaborating with researchers and engineers.

The role requires Python and ML framework proficiency; prior ML/DL experience is preferred. Interns participate in Waymo's generous benefits programs and contribute to impactful, real-world robotics research.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, ML, Robotics or a related field.
• Proficient in Python and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, NumPy, JAX).
• Experience with ML/DL techniques and research-oriented mindset.

Responsibilities

• Develop controllable adversarial agents for efficient simulation-based evaluation in the Waymo Simulator.
• Iterate on post-training recipes for the state‑of‑the‑art Foundation Models and Waymo World Models.

Skills

Python

Tensor manipulation

Machine Learning

Deep Learning

Education

PhD in Computer Science / ML / Robotics

Tools

PyTorch

NumPy

JAX

TensorFlow

Job description

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

Software Engineering builds the brains of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our software allows the Waymo Driver to perceive the world around it, make the right decision for every situation, and deliver people safely to their destinations. We think deeply and solve complex technical challenges in areas like robotics, perception, decision-making and deep learning, while collaborating with hardware and systems engineers. If you’re a software engineer or researcher who’s curious and passionate about Level 4 autonomous driving, we'd like to meet you.

Waymo interns partner with leaders in the industry on projects that create impact to the company. We believe learning is a two-way street: applying your knowledge while providing you with opportunities to expand your skill-set. Interns are an important part of our culture and our recruiting pipeline. Join us at Waymo for a fun and rewarding internship!

You will:

• Develop controllable & realistic adversarial agents for more efficient simulation based evaluation and deploy them in the Waymo Simulator
• Iterate on the post-training recipes for the state‑of‑the‑art Foundation Models and Waymo World Models

You have:

• Currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related technical field
• Proficient in Python Coding and Tensor Manipulation (using Pytorch / NumPy / JAX / TensorFlow / etc.)
• Experience with Machine Learning and Deep Learning

We prefer:

• Hands‑on experience with post‑training and reinforcement learning
• Hands‑on experience with attention mechanisms, diffusion and / or autoregressive architectures
• Experience with autonomous driving or robotics

Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position. We will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, you will need to apply to each one individually.

The expected annual pay for this full-time position is listed below. Interns are also eligible to participate in the Company’s generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements.

PhD Pay

£80,000—£80,000 GBP