2026 Intern: Research Scientist - AI-powered Automation
Introduction
IBM Research takes responsibility for technology and its role in society. Working in IBM Research means you'll join a team who invent what's next in computing, always choosing the big, urgent and mind-bending work that endures and shapes generations. Our passion for discovery, and excitement for defining the future of tech, is what builds our strong culture around solving problems for clients and seeing the real world impact that you can make.
IBM's product and technology landscape includes Research, Software, and Infrastructure. Entering this domain positions you at the heart of IBM, where growth and innovation thrive.
Your role and responsibilities
Artificial intelligence is having a profound impact on all aspects of our lives and is transforming how work is conducted in every industry. Today, AI systems are enabling businesses to personalize services, converse with customers, automate operations, optimize workflows, predict demand, and recommend next best actions. A common thread to our ambitious AI and watsonx Research agenda is to understand how AI systems and algorithms can be designed responsibly and produce effective outcomes for their enterprise users.
We are seeking intern candidates to help us advance our research and development agenda on artificial intelligence and foundation models in areas including Natural Language Processing, Distributed (Edge) AI, Trusted AI, Scalable Data Engineering, AI for Business and IT Automation, AI Applications, AI Security, AI Hardware, Automated AI, Conversational AI and API Composition and Orchestration.
You have a proven interest and experience in defining and driving a research agenda for the duration of the internship with the goal to publish your work at top academic venues. During your internship you will work in close
collaboration with other researchers and engineers to conduct world-class research and software development. Demonstrated communication skills are essential.
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise
• Programming lanaguages: Python, Java, C/C++, JavaScript, R, etc.
• Software engineering best practices, including agile techniques
• Cloud-native development and toolkits such as Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift
• Machine learning engineering: creating training pipelines and evaluating models using toolkits such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, and scikit-learn
• Design, validation, and characterization of algorithms and/or systems
• Machine learning theory: discriminative models, generative models, deep neural networks, large language models, detecting and mitigating bias, adversarial robustness, causality, uncertainty
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• Backend storage technologies such as SQL and NoSQL databases such as Postgres, MongoDB, Cloudant, ElasticSearch, etc.
Preferred technical and professional experience
• Experience analyzing large-scale data from a variety of sources
• Experience publishing scientific results in technical communities such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, IJCAI, ACL, AAAI, KDD, CHI, IUI, CSCW, or similar
• Experience in training large-scale machine learning models
• Qualitative and quantitative user research and user-centric design
• Experience solving analytical problems using rigorous and quantitative approaches
• Experience in front and back-end web application development and frameworks such as HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Carbon, React, Flask, Node.js, etc.
• Knowledge in one or more of the following topics: finetuning algorithms (e.g., LoRA, DPO, etc.), reinforcement learning, model architectures (e.g., transformers, state-space models, etc.), LLM-based agents, agentic workflows, multi-agent systems, RAG, agent frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, CrewAI, etc.), time series data
ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT
IBM Research is the organic growth engine of IBM and an innovation engine for our customers and partners. As part of this mission, IBM Research anticipates and examines 'What's Next in Computing' to ultimately create and integrate the technologies the world relies upon to solve big challenges and unlock new opportunities. We create and pioneer new markets for IBM, our partners and customers as exemplified in our ongoing quest to reach practical and large-scale quantum computing. Across IBM Research, we realize the power and potential to accelerate discovery with our partners and clients by combining the power of high performance computing, AI, and Quantum, all integrated through the hybrid cloud.
YOUR LIFE @ IBM
In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.
Being an IBMer means you'll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you'll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.
Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.
Are you ready to be an IBMer?
ABOUT IBM
IBM's greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.
Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we're also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.
At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it's time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.
IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS
Supplemental 1 employees may be eligible for up to 8 paid holidays, minimum of 56 hours paid sick time and the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan. IBM offers paid family medical leave and disability benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law.
This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 15 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.
We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.
The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.
Perks and Benefits
Health and Wellness
Parental Benefits
Work Flexibility
Office Life and Perks
Vacation and Time Off
Financial and Retirement
Professional Development
Diversity and Inclusion
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