Data Engineering Intern, AI & Analytics - Fall

Role Summary

We are seeking an AI Engineer Intern to contribute to research and development across speech, vision, language, and multimodal AI systems. You will work closely with researchers and engineers to build, train, evaluate, and deploy advanced models for conversational and in‑vehicle applications. This role offers hands‑on experience across the full AI development lifecycle, with an emphasis on scalable, robust, and efficient models.

Program Details:

• Timeline: Full‑time, September 21 – December 18
• Location: Palo Alto, CA

• Contribute to the research and development of generative and discriminative AI models for:
  • Speech and audio systems
    , including ASR, TTS, speech‑to‑speech, speaker modeling, diarization, and audio understanding.
  • Vision and video understanding
    , using transformer‑based architectures for spatial and spatiotemporal modeling, self‑supervised learning, and diffusion‑based generative models.
  • Multimodal and foundation models
    , such as Vision‑Language and Speech‑Language Models that integrate visual, audio, speech, and text modalities.
• Train, supervised fine‑tune (SFT), and evaluate deep learning and foundation models on large, domain‑specific datasets.
• Apply reinforcement and generative policy learning techniques, including imitation learning, preference‑based optimization, and alignment methods (e.g., RLHF, RLAIF, DPO).
• Curate, preprocess, and manage multimodal datasets, including audio, image, video, text, and preference or trajectory data.
• Design and execute experiments to explore new modeling, generative, and alignment approaches.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams and clearly document experimental workflows and results.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing an MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Electrical Engineering, or a related field at a U.S. university.
• Strong Python programming skills and experience with PyTorch or Tensor Flow.
• Solid understanding of machine learning, deep learning, generative modeling, and reinforcement learning fundamentals.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands‑on experience with diffusion models, SFT, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or preference‑based optimization.
• Experience working with multimodal or foundation models.
• Exposure to distributed training or large‑scale inference systems.
• Contributions to research projects, publications, or open‑source software.
• Familiarity with transformer‑based architectures, diffusion models, or modern speech/video/language modeling approaches.
• Experience using AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor) for coding, experimentation, or rapid prototyping.
• Ability to learn quickly and contribute effectively in a collaborative research and engineering environment.

Full‑time positions include base salary, eligibility for an annual performance bonus, and eligibility for equity.

In addition to base salary, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies offers benefits tailored to the local market. For more information on the benefits available for full‑time employees, check out our Global Benefits Site.

External candidates can apply for this role through the Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies careers site. If you are a current employee, please apply through our internal job board.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We are also committed to ensuring compliance with all applicable fair employment practice laws regarding citizenship and immigration status.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation that requires accommodations, please email us at candi