AI Research Intern

Primary Function of Position

We are seeking a self-motivated intern to support our AI Research and Development team in projects focused on developing a variety of AI foundation models based on multi-modal surgical data. This role is an exciting opportunity to join a newly formed team, advance the state-of-the-art in surgical robotics, and test your knowledge in a challenging problem-solving environment.

Essential Job Duties

• Research, design and implement AI algorithms using multi-modal data including image, video, text, and robotics.
• Develop software and methods for training, evaluation and testing such AI algorithms.
• Develop evaluation metrics in the context of specific applications and perform extensive validation experiments to analyze accuracy, efficiency, and generalizability.
• Work with existing datasets and contribute to efforts in creating new datasets.

Required Skills and Experience

University Hiring Program Eligibility Requirements:

• University Enrollment: Must be currently enrolled in and returning to an accredited degree-seeking academic program in the Fall.
• Internship Work Period: Must be available to work starting October 2024 and full-time (approximately 40 hours per week) during a 10-12 week period starting May or June. Specific start dates are shared during the recruiting process.

Required Education and Training

• Current enrollment in an Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Robotics with emphasis on AI, Machine Learning and Computer Vision or related degree-seeking program at the Master’s or Doctorate level.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Publications in top-tier conferences/journals
• Experience building systems based on machine learning and/or deep learning methods.
• Strong hands-on Python skills.
• Strong hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks such PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Caffe.
• Good hands-on experience with the state-of-the-art deep learning models for language modelling and text retrieval of structured and unstructured text.
• Good hands-on experience with open-source LLM models and libraries (HuggingFace, LLaMa, LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc).
• Self-starter and able to work in a collaborative and results oriented environment.
• (Preferred) Experience extending and innovating on LLM/AI agent techniques. Experience in one or more of RLHF, DPO, finetuning, RAG, CoT, and multi-agent reasoning.
• (Preferred) Experience with model quantization, LLM edge hardware deployment, prompt engineering, and/or data synthesis.

Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19.  Details can vary by role.

Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, without regard to race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, religion, protected veteran or disability status, genetic information or any other status protected under federal, state, or local applicable laws.

Mandatory Notices

U.S. Export Controls Disclaimer:  In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR §743.13(b)), some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employees
who are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.

Certain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the government’s licensing process can take 3 to 6+ months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (“TCP”) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).  

For any Intuitive role subject to export controls, final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employee’s
start date, which may or may not be flexible, and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable, candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes. 

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.

We provide market-competitive compensation packages, inclusive of base pay (paid at an hourly rate), benefits, and a housing allowance. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role, as actual pay will be determined based on several factors, including relevant skills and experience for this internship, degree-seeking academic program (PhD, Master’s, Bachelor’s, etc), year in school, and location. The hourly rate is prorated against the intern program salaries listed and total program compensation will be based on internship duration.