Robotics Research Intern - Post-Training

Socket.dev; Los Altos (CA); Hybrid; USD 62,000 - 90,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Benefits package including medical, d…

Job summary

Two Research Interns are sought by Toyota Research Institute (TRI) to explore post-training and adaptation of pretrained generalist robot policies. The internship will involve collaboration across the Robotics division, focusing on RL, imitation learning, sim-to-real, and world models.

You will contribute to cutting-edge robotics research and may publish findings at leading venues. Ideal candidates are pursuing a Ph.D.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. studies in relevant fields with strong research experience.
• Experience in robot learning, RL, imitation learning, generative modeling or world models.
• Interest in open problems in large-scale ML tied to physical systems.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch.
• Ability to collaborate and communicate research findings clearly.

Responsibilities

• Investigate post-training adaptation of pretrained generalist robot policies.
• Explore offline-to-online RL, DAgger, interactive learning, or human-in-the-loop methods.
• Study sim-to-real policy distillation and adaptation for robotics tasks.
• Contribute to data generation, planning, or world-model improvements.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers toward publishable results.

Skills

Robot learning

Reinforcement learning

Imitation learning

Generative modeling

World models

Large-scale ML

Python

PyTorch

Communication

RL methods

Simulation

Sim-to-real

Policy distillation

Publications

Applied research

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or related field

Job description

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team across Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human Interactive Driving, and Robotics.

This is a Fall 2026 paid internship opportunity. Please note that this internship will be a hybrid, in-office role.

The Team

Our team in the Robotics division is developing pretrained generalist policies that can support a broad range of tasks, environments, and robotic systems. A central scientific challenge is determining how these broadly pretrained policies can be efficiently adapted to new target tasks while achieving the reliability, precision, and robustness required for real-world use.

Pretraining can provide a policy with broad behavioral capabilities, but those capabilities may not immediately translate into dependable performance in a specific deployment setting. Effective post-training methods are therefore essential for converting general capabilities into policies that can adapt quickly, learn from limited additional data or interaction, and perform consistently on demanding downstream tasks.

Our research interests include reinforcement learning, imitation learning, human-in-the-loop learning, simulation, world models, policy distillation, and large-scale robot learning. We aim to advance the scientific foundations of policy adaptation while developing methods that may ultimately be evaluated or deployed within internal research projects involving real-world industrial tasks.

The Internship

We are looking for two Research Interns to investigate open research questions in the post-training and adaptation of pretrained generalist robot policies.

Potential research directions include, but are not limited to:

• Offline-to-online reinforcement learning
• DAgger, imitation learning, and human-in-the-loop policy improvement
• Sim-to-real policy distillation and adaptation
• Policy improvement, planning, or data generation using world models
• Data-efficient adaptation to new tasks and environments

Internship projects will be scoped according to each intern’s research background, interests, and current team priorities. Interns will work closely with researchers and engineers across the Robotics division, with the goal of producing meaningful scientific results and, where appropriate, publications at leading robotics or machine-learning venues.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• Research experience in robot learning, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, generative modeling, world models, or a related area.
• Interest in open research problems involving large-scale machine learning grounded in physical systems.
• Proficiency in Python and a deep-learning framework such as PyTorch.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with researchers and engineers and communicate research findings clearly.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with pretrained generalist policies, foundation models, or large-scale robot-learning systems.
• Familiarity with offline or online reinforcement learning, DAgger, interactive learning, or human-in-the-loop methods.
• Experience with simulation, sim-to-real transfer, policy distillation, or robotic manipulation.
• Experience with learned world models, model-based reinforcement learning, or planning.
• Publication record or interest in publishing at leading venues such as CoRL, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, RSS, ICRA, IROS, or related conferences and journals.
• Interest in translating fundamental research into reliable methods that can be evaluated on real robotic systems and practical downstream tasks.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $45 and $65/hour for California-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's experience, skills, job-related knowledge, and market location. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, and paid time off benefits (including holiday pay and sick time). Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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