Internship

Autopoiesis Sciences; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 28,000 - 41,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

12-week internship

SF office in person

Job summary

Autopoiesis Sciences in San Francisco invites exceptional interns to join our research team tackling the core problem of training models that can do science autonomously. This is a genuine research and engineering role where you'll run experiments, build systems, and see your work influence real projects.

You'll collaborate across research and engineering, form hypotheses, test them, and iterate quickly. The 12-week, in-person internship offers a chance to learn at the frontier of AI for science.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to do hard technical work in ML or software.
• Strong fundamentals in machine learning and algorithms.
• Ability to bridge research ideas with engineering implementations.
• Self-motivated with the habit of learning new topics quickly.

Skills

Hard Tech Work

ML Fundamentals

Research & Engineering

Self-learning

Job description

We're building AI capable of autonomous scientific discovery. Our mission is to reach a world where discovery is no longer bottlenecked by the number of human scientists alive to pursue it.

Reinforcement learning has taken models remarkably far in math and code, where an answer can be checked and a model can learn from ten thousand attempts. Science offers no such reward function. The judgment a scientist exercises before any result is certain, which hypothesis is worth the month, what the evidence actually supports, when to abandon a promising dead end, has never been captured at scale. That missing signal is the real bottleneck, and it's the one we build for: the environments, datasets, and expert reasoning that teach models to do science, not just recite it.

That work is already in the world. We built and operate Aristotle, an AI research partner trusted by thousands of researchers at some of the most demanding institutions in science, including GSK, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and the FDA. Alongside it, we're developing autonomous research systems that take on long-horizon scientific problems end to end.

Backed by leading investors and advised by the scientists who built the field, Autopoiesis is redefining what discovery looks like in the most important industry of the century.

About the role

We're looking for exceptional interns to work alongside our research team on the core problem of training models that can do science on their own. This is a real research and engineering role, not a shadowing exercise. You'll take on genuine problems, run experiments, build the systems around them, and see your work make it into what we're building.

We don't draw a hard line between research and engineering, and we don't want interns who do either. What matters is that you can form a hypothesis, build the thing that tests it, read the results honestly, and decide what to do next.

We run internships in three cohorts, Fall 2026, Spring 2027, and Summer 2027. Each is a 12-week paid internship, in person at our San Francisco office.

What you'll bring

• Clear proof you can do hard technical work, whether research, shipped systems, or training code. Show us what you've made.
• Real depth in ML and the fundamentals that outlast any one method or framework.
• Comfort working across research and engineering, without needing either label to define you.
• Hunger, speed, and the habit of teaching yourself whatever a problem demands.

Our values

The mission is the only thing.

Everything we do either moves discovery forward or it doesn't, and anything that doesn't is a day we won't get back. We hold every decision, every hire, and every week against that one question. The mission is hard enough that nothing else earns a place next to it.

Bet on the process, not the outcome.

We think in expected value. A good decision made on the best available information is a good decision even when the result disappoints, and a lucky win off a bad process teaches us nothing. We reward sound reasoning, run the bets worth running, and judge ourselves by how well we chose, not only by how it landed.

Don't compete, be uncontested.

Competition is a symptom of a weak position. We don't win by racing others down a crowded path, we win by building something no one else can, in a direction no one else is looking. When we find ourselves fighting for scraps, we've made a strategic mistake upstream.

Own it end to end.

There are no bystanders here. We spot what's broken, take full responsibility for a strong result, and see it through. We're self-driven, own our mistakes plainly, and feel deep responsibility for what we're building.

Where we work

We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco office. We are in person 5 days a week.

What we offer

A 12-week paid internship working directly on the core problem of getting AI to make real scientific discoveries, alongside a young team moving fast on one of the most important problems in science. If you want to find out what work at the frontier feels like, even if you don't meet every requirement.

Equal opportunity

Autopoiesis Sciences, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristics.