Research Scientist Intern, Meta Recommendation Systems (PhD)

Meta; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 141,000; Part time

Job summary

Meta in Menlo Park, CA is seeking a Research Scientist Intern for the Recommendation Systems team. You will conduct cutting-edge AI research on multi-modal data and large-scale models to advance the state of the art in recommender systems across the Meta family of apps.

Ideal candidates are pursuing a PhD in a relevant field, have strong Python and ML library experience (PyTorch, Transformers), and can collaborate with researchers and product teams.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, ML, CV, or related field.
• Must obtain work authorization in country of employment.
• Experience with Python and ML libraries such as PyTorch and Transformers.
• Familiar with multimodal ML, LLMs, and large-scale systems.
• Experience building ML-based systems.

Responsibilities

• Initiate and lead long-term research goals in recommender systems.
• Publish findings and contribute to open-source software.
• Design, train, and support AI/ML libraries for internal use at Meta.
• Collaborate with researchers and cross-functional partners, communicating progress.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Transformers

ML algorithms

Education

PhD in CS/ML

Job description

Meta was built to help people connect and share, and over the last decade our tools have played a critical part in changing how people around the world communicate with one another. With over a billion people using the service and more than fifty offices around the globe, a career at Meta offers countless ways to make an impact in a fast growing organization.Meta is seeking Research Interns to join our research team within Meta Recommendation Systems (MRS). This team brings together a world-class team of AI Research Scientists and Engineers. The team is exploring and advancing SoTA technology, centering around AI and ML, to arrive at a unified infrastructure and model service to leapfrog recommendation systems (Recsys), its theory and algorithms across Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the "Family of Apps" (FoA)). Our interns will have the opportunity to perform cutting-edge research on AI for Recsys with the potential to have an impact at Meta's scale.Our vision is to leverage AI frontier models and technology in all aspects of recommendation systems including but not limited to deep understanding of multi-modal content (especially images/videos, posts, user interactions), modeling user interests and preference, agentic AI for recsys, recursive self-improvement for recsys, values of the ecosystems. We contribute to the mission of connecting users to the content they enjoy, are inspired by, and that they want to see more of. To this end, we conduct cutting-edge research using the complete suite of audio, visual, text and metadata signals associated with posts and videos to improve recommendation relevance across all surfaces and provide a better, more meaningful experience to users. We build tools, create frameworks and train models that we deploy together with product and infrastructure teams to gain adoption across the FoA. We also publish scientific papers to help advance the state of the art in all aspects of the technology stack.Our team offers twelve (12) to twenty-four (24) weeks long internships and we have various start dates throughout the year.

Research Scientist Intern, Meta Recommendation Systems (PhD) Responsibilities:

• Initiate and lead efforts towards long-term ambitious research goals, while identifying intermediate milestones in the area of recommendation systems and models, user and content understanding and multi-modal (video, audio, and text) LLM analysis for classification and relevance use cases.
• Conduct original research that can eventually be applied to Meta product development, engage with the wider research community, including publishing and releasing open source software where appropriate.
• Design, train and support AI/ML libraries and models to implement new features and functionality for use internally at Meta.
• Collaborate with researchers and cross-functional partners including communicating research plans, progress, and results.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently has or is in the process of obtaining a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, or relevant technical field
• Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment
• Experience with Python, with experience in machine/deep learning libraries such as Pytorch and Transformers
• Familiarity with AI/ML modeling and algorithmic techniques (e.g., various components of multimodal LLM, RAG, LSTM, GRU, Transformers, RL, and/or its acceleration for large scale use cases) and new emergent technologies such as agentic AI, RSI, autoresearch, etc
• Experience building systems based on machine learning and/or deep learning methods

Preferred Qualifications:

• Intent to return to the degree program after the completion of the internship
• Proven track record of achieving significant results as demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, as well as publications at leading workshops or conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, KDD, ICML, SIGIR, WSDM, RecSys, CIKM, CVPR, ECCV/ICCV/WACV, ACL, EMNLP, ICASSP, CoLM, or similar venues
• Experience working and communicating cross functionally in a team environment
• Prior research or project experience in sequence modeling, recommendation systems, or user modeling, RL, etc
• Prior research or project experience about LLMs (e.g., pre/mid-training, alignment, post-training, RLVR, etc.) and agents (e.g., meta-harness, self-evolving agents, etc.)

About Meta:

Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today - beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.

Meta is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Aff. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Meta participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. Please note that Meta may leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in connection with applications for employment.

Meta is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at [e-mail].

$7,650/month to $12,667/month + benefits

Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.