2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning - Generative World Models & Controllable Simulation

Waymo, Mountain View, California +1

What you will do

Design, implement, and scale controllable generation and test-time compute algorithms, multimodal conditioning, and critic-guided flow/diffusion steering—for foundation world models.
Investigate multimodal sensor + semantic latent conditioning, and representation alignment to advance toward holistic world simulation.
Leverage learned realism critics and agentic autoresearch workflows on large-scale TPU clusters to evaluate closed-loop interactive realism, long-tail scenario synthesis, and multimodal consistency.
Write clean, modular, and well-tested JAX code in core simulation and world-modeling codebases, collaborating closely with researchers across Sim Realism, Foundation Models, and Closed-Loop Training teams.

All jobs

2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning - Generative World Models & Controllable Simulation

Waymo, Mountain View, California +1

What you will do

Design, implement, and scale controllable generation and test-time compute algorithms, multimodal conditioning, and critic-guided flow/diffusion steering—for foundation world models.
Investigate multimodal sensor + semantic latent conditioning, and representation alignment to advance toward holistic world simulation.
Leverage learned realism critics and agentic autoresearch workflows on large-scale TPU clusters to evaluate closed-loop interactive realism, long-tail scenario synthesis, and multimodal consistency.
Write clean, modular, and well-tested JAX code in core simulation and world-modeling codebases, collaborating closely with researchers across Sim Realism, Foundation Models, and Closed-Loop Training teams.

What you need

Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related technical field, with an anticipated graduation date between December 2027 and August 2028 (returning to a degree program for at least one academic term after the internship).
Core Implementation Fluency (Mandatory): Strong tensor implementation and debugging skills in Python and JAX/Flax or PyTorch, with hands-on experience training and modifying modern neural architectures (such as Transformers, Diffusion/Flow-Matching models, or deep RL/critic networks).
Deep Research Expertise in Either: (a) Controllable Generative World / Sequence Modeling & Inference-Time Scaling (hands-on research experience in continuous flow matching / Rectified Flows, score-based diffusion guidance/steering, test-time compute / SMC, or parameter-efficient finetuning) OR (b) Multimodal Spatiotemporal Representation Learning & Closed-Loop Simulation (hands-on research experience in 4D/video tokenization, latent dynamics alignment such as REPA/DINO alignment, inverse RL / adversarial discriminators, or multi-agent trajectory modeling), with working familiarity in the other.

We prefer

First-author publications at top-tier machine learning, computer vision, or robotics venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ECCV, CoRL, RSS, ICRA, or equivalent venues) in generative world models, flow/diffusion steering, controllable generation, or autonomous driving simulation.
Experience with multi-agent closed-loop simulation, counterfactual/adversarial traffic generation, or Sim2Real discriminator/critic stabilization (e.g., Waymax, WOMD, NuPlan, MGAIL, or reward-hacking mitigation).
Experience profiling and scaling distributed training and inference workloads on TPUs or multi-node GPUs (such as XLA compilation, vectorized batched rollouts, and memory optimization) and interest in external conference publication on Waymax/WOMD.

Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position. We will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, you will need to apply to each one individually - please apply to the top 3 roles you are interested in.

The expected hourly rate for this full-time position is listed below. Interns are also eligible to participate in the Company’s generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements.

2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning - Generative World Models & Controllable Simulation

What you will do

2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Machine Learning - Generative World Models & Controllable Simulation

What you will do

What you need

We prefer

Hourly PhD Pay

About Waymo

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