Zoox Machine Learning Engineer Intern - Autonomy Behavior

Zoox is offering a Machine Learning Engineer Intern position within the Autonomy Behavior group, based in Foster City, CA. This internship is ideal for students pursuing a B.S., M.S., Ph.D., or advanced degree in a relevant engineering field. The internship requires a 12-week commitment starting in May or June 2026, and interns must be returning to school after the internship.

About the Role

The Autonomy Behavior team is responsible for developing planning and control systems that enable safe, comfortable, and efficient driving decisions for Zoox's autonomous vehicles. Interns may be assigned to one of the following teams:

• Hydra Team: Focuses on improving introspection for the ML planner and enhancing model performance. This team is working on a hybrid planning system that combines a learned planner with a search-based supervisor system. Interns will have the opportunity to work with experts in Imitation Learning and Reinforcement Learning.

• Onboard Behavior Encoder Team: Involves modeling and scaling ML architectures to enable behavior decision-making in autonomous vehicles. This role includes research at the intersection of LLM models and motion planning systems.

• Prediction Integration Team: Focuses on improving the ML Planner's performance and developing methods for analyzing and explaining its decisions. Interns will learn from leading experts in autonomous driving and ML research.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a relevant engineering program.
• Must return to school after the internship.
• Good academic standing.
• Ability to relocate to the Bay Area, California.
• At least one previous industry internship, co-op, or project.
• No use of proprietary information from Zoox in academic or published work.

Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of Python or C++.
• Experience with PyTorch and/or JAX.
• Experience with production ML pipelines, including dataset creation, labeling, training, and metrics.
• Experience with Neural Network design and implementation.
• Strong track record in machine learning for autonomous driving, robotics, or LLMs.

Bonus Qualifications

• Publications in top-tier conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, etc.).
• Familiarity with ML visualization and introspection techniques.

Compensation

• Monthly salary range: $5,500 to $9,500.
• Compensation varies based on geographic location and education level.
• Additional benefits may include medical insurance and a housing stipend.