Research Intern (PhD), Autonomy

Research Intern (PhD), Autonomy

Stack is developing revolutionary AI and advanced autonomous systems designed to enhance safety, reliability, and efficiency of modern operations. Stack's autonomous technology incorporates cutting-edge advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, and cloud technologies, empowering us to create innovative solutions that address the needs and challenges of the dynamic trucking transportation industry. With decades of experience creating and deploying real world systems for demanding environments, the Stack team is dedicated to developing an autonomous solution ecosystem tailored to the trucking industry's unique demands.

We are seeking the best and brightest interns that are eager to contribute to transformative AI solutions. As an early-stage start up, we expect our interns to be an integral part of the team while gaining collaboration opportunities with industry leaders to grow your career and research.

We welcome students who are enrolled in university, pursuing a doctorate degree and are currently located in the United States. Our 2026 Summer internship will be at least 12 weeks in duration (note: we may have flexibility to continue into the fall semester). We offer competitive pay and support sponsorship.

Our Autonomy team brings together experts in artificial intelligence, perception, machine learning, decision-making, and controls to drive the most visible and high-impact initiatives behind our autonomous vehicle product. As an intern, you'll dive into cutting-edge research challenges and contribute to breakthroughs that directly shape the future of our technology.

Potential internship research areas could be:

Autolabeling

3D perception/tracking/SLAM

Long range perception

Methods to introspect data / determine automatic similarity

Automatic mapping

Prediction

Deep decision making

Deep world building

Minimum qualifications:

Currently enrolled in a PhD program in a relevant field (3+ years into program preferred)

Strong programming skills in Python or C++

Experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch

Strong foundation in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Simulation, Reinforcement Learning

Ability to develop, train, and validate AI/CV/ML models

Experience in SOTA deep learning techniques, e.g. multi-modal foundational models

Experience working and communicating cross functionally in a team environment

Preferred qualifications:

Track record of research excellence demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, or publications at top conferences such as CVPR, ICCV, ICRA, IROS, etc.

Strong track-record of published research

Strong programming experience using python and pytorch

Prior software engineering or research experience in an internship, work experience, or widely used contributions in open source repositories (e.g. GitHub)

We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We believe that diverse teams produce the best ideas and outcomes. We are committed to building a culture of inclusion, entrepreneurship, and innovation across gender, race, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and identity.