2026 PhD Software Engineer Intern (Engineering Security, United States at Uber

Wayne State University; United States; On-site; USD 34,440 - 48,216; Full time

Job summary

A prestigious educational institution is seeking PhD candidates for a winter 2026 internship on its Engineering Security team. Interns will work closely with professionals to develop AI agents aimed at enhancing security and privacy. Responsibilities include researching AI-driven solutions, designing automated workflows, and collaborating with engineers for production integration. Candidates should be current PhD students with a strong understanding of the LLM ecosystem, excellent Python skills, and a demonstrated ability for independent research.

Qualifications

• Current PhD student in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or Security.
• Strong understanding of LLM ecosystem and agentic AI frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct independent research.

Responsibilities

• Research and prototype AI-driven agents to discover and remediate vulnerabilities.
• Design automated patching and verification workflows using LLMs.
• Collaborate with teams to integrate solutions into production systems.

Skills

Understanding of LLM ecosystem

Proficiency in Python

Experience with ML frameworks

Independent research ability

Problem-solving skills

Communication skills

Education

Current PhD student in relevant field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

We’re looking for PhD candidates to intern on the Engineering Security team during winter 2026 (12 weeks). You will be embedded in our engineering team and work closely with other specialists, software developers, and product managers. As a PhD intern, you will contribute to research and development of AI agents for security and privacy. You’ll explore methods to build, evaluate, and scale agents that can reason about complex systems, detect vulnerabilities, propose and apply patches, and verify security outcomes.

About the Team

Join Uber's Engineering Security (EngSec) organization at our growing center of excellence for AI/ML initiatives. Our mission is transforming security and privacy through AI innovation, focusing on three critical areas: using AI to strengthen security capabilities, building secure-by-design AI systems, and protecting against emerging AI-based threats. We're developing the next generation of security and privacy platforms that leverage and defend against cutting-edge AI to protect Uber's ecosystem.

What You'll Do

• Research and prototype AI-driven agents that can discover, remediate, and verify security vulnerabilities
• Design and evaluate automated patching and verification workflows using LLMs and agent-based architectures
• Investigate reasoning, planning, and tool-use capabilities of LLM-based agents in security contexts
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to integrate solutions into production systems
• Document findings and contribute to technical reports, publications, or open-source tools

Basic Qualifications

• Current PhD student in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Security, or related field
• Candidates must have at least one semester/quarter of their education left following the internship
• Strong understanding of the LLM ecosystem and agentic AI frameworks (e.g., tool use, multi-step reasoning, orchestration)
• Proficiency in Python and experience with ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Demonstrated ability to conduct independent research

Preferred Qualifications

• Publications in top ML/AI or security venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, USENIX Security, CCS, IEEE S&P)
• Familiarity with automated reasoning, program synthesis, or verification methods
• Experience applying LLMs to security and software engineering tasksStrong problem-solving and communication skills