Data Science Intern

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 88,000 - 118,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Data Science Intern for Fall 2026 in San Francisco. The role involves building ML systems for search, personalization, and ranking within a two-sided marketplace.

You will work end-to-end from data exploration to production-ready solutions, with a strong emphasis on recommender systems and contextual bandits. The internship lasts 12–14 weeks, is paid, and offers a hybrid work arrangement with office days and remote flexibility.

Qualifications

• Current enrollment or recent graduation from Master’s or PhD program in Computer Science, Operations Research, Statistics, Econometrics, or related field.
• Experience with recommender systems (collaborative filtering, deep recommenders, ranking) and representation learning.
• Familiarity with offline evaluation metrics (NDCG, MAP) and online experimentation.
• Experience working with large-scale or production datasets.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and A/B test ML algorithms and analytical solutions with guidance from senior leads.
• Communicate objectives, methodologies, and results to teammates and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Address challenges in a two-sided marketplace balancing retailer and brand needs.

Skills

Recommender systems

Representation learning

Sequential models

Bandit methods

Online experimentation

Education

Master’s or PhD in CS/OR/Statistics

Tools

Large-scale datasets

Job description

About the company

the company is a technology wholesale platform built on the belief that the future is local. Independent retailers around the globe collectively represent a multi-hundred-billion-dollar wholesale market that has historically been fragmented and offline. At the company, we’re using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect this thriving community of entrepreneurs across the globe. Picture your favorite boutique in town — we help them discover the best products from around the world to sell in their stores. With the right tools and insights, we believe that we can level the playing field so businesses can grow and local communities can thrive.

We’re looking for smart, resourceful and passionate people to join us as we power the shop local movement. If you believe in community, come join ours.

Data Science Internship - Fall 2026

the company leverages machine learning and data insights to transform the wholesale industry, giving independent retailers the tools to compete with large-scale e-commerce platforms and big-box stores. Our Data Science team builds and maintains the algorithmic systems — spanning search, personalization, recommendation, and ranking — that power our marketplace and help our customers thrive.

We are hiring Data Science interns across several teams and are looking for intellectually curious, self-directed problem solvers eager to work end-to-end on high-impact challenges, from data exploration to production-ready solutions.

Our internships are paid, 12–14 weeks in duration, with flexible start dates. Extensions are considered based on project scope and mutual interest.

Open Team Search & Recommendation

• Design and deploy state-of-the-art recommender systems that power ranking and discovery across the marketplace
• Develop rich user and item representations through embeddings, sequence models, and graph-based methods
• Build real-time and streaming data pipelines that enable dynamic, context-aware personalization at scale
• Apply exploration–exploitation strategies — including contextual bandits and reinforcement learning — to optimize recommendations under uncertainty
• Advance recommendation quality through improvements to diversification, novelty, and long-term user engagement
• Own the full ML lifecycle: from problem formulation and modeling through offline evaluation and online experimentation

What You’ll Do

• Design, develop, and A/B test cutting-edge machine learning algorithms and analytical solutions, with guidance from senior technical leads
• Communicate project objectives, methodologies, and results clearly to both immediate teammates and broader cross-functional stakeholders
• Navigate the complexity of a two-sided marketplace, identifying and addressing the unique challenges that arise at the intersection of retailer and brand needs

What We’re Looking For

All candidates must be currently enrolled or recently graduated Master’s or PhD students in Computer Science, Operations Research, Statistics, Econometrics, or a related technical discipline. Beyond that, we’re looking for team-specific experience:

Search & Recommendation Systems

• Publications or submissions to top-tier venues such as KDD, RecSys, ICML, NeurIPS, WWW, or SIGIR
• Experience with recommender systems (collaborative filtering, deep recommenders, ranking), representation learning and embeddings, sequential models (RNNs, Transformers for user behavior modeling), bandit and reinforcement learning methods, and large-scale retrieval and ranking systems
• Familiarity with offline evaluation metrics (NDCG, MAP, recall) and online experimentation
• Experience working with large-scale or production datasets

Pay rate:

San Francisco: the pay rate for this role is $75 USD per hour.

Actual hourly pay will be determined based on permissible factors such as transferable skills, work experience, market demands, and primary work location. The pay range provided is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

the company uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to screen and select applicants for this position.

This job posting is for an existing vacancy.

#LI-DNI

Hybrid the company employees currently go into the office 3 days per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and a third flex day of their choosing (Monday, Wednesday, or Friday). Additionally, hybrid in-office roles will have the flexibility to work remotely up to 4 weeks per year. Specific Workplace and Information Technology positions may require onsite attendance 5 days per week as will be indicated in the job posting.

Why you’ll love working at the company

• Move fast: You’ll own meaningful problems that serve customers around the globe with the agency to move fast and see your results clearly.
• Equipped to scale: We invest in what matters, including the latest enterprise AI tools, to help you work smarter and get more out of every day.
• Best in class: Our team is full of sharp, kind, and generous colleagues who care about their craft and about helping you grow in yours.
• Real rewards. Competitive pay, equity, and comprehensive benefits d