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PhD Autonomy Engineer Intern – Planning & Controls, Reinforcement Learning
SkydioPhD Autonomy Engineer Intern researching reinforcement learning for autonomous drones. Collaborating across disciplines to develop intelligent navigation and control methods in real-world scenarios.
Tech Stack
Tools & technologiesCloudPythonPyTorchRay
About the role
Key responsibilities & impact- Develop and deploy reinforcement learning (and adjacent policy-learning methods) that make Skydio aircraft plan, navigate, and control themselves more intelligently—safely, reliably, and efficiently across our ecosystem: handheld apps, ground control, cloud autonomy services, and fleet workflows.
- Train policies that adapt online to cluttered 3D scenes, complementing our geometric stack for robust obstacle avoidance and dynamic goal-seeking.
- Fuse learned cost shaping/value functions with trajectory optimization for smooth, agile flight with tight safety envelopes and mission constraints.
- Build scalable datasets and training loops with Isaac Lab, domain randomization, residual learning, and safety filters; validate on real drones weekly.
- Learn assistive policies that blend pilot intent, autonomy priors, and uncertainty-aware behaviors for intuitive control handoffs.
- Explore decentralized coordination for coverage, pursuit, and collaborative mapping with minimal comms.
Requirements
What you’ll need- PhD student in Robotics, Machine Learning, Controls, or related field.
- Strong fundamentals in RL, control theory, and motion planning; comfort with safety/robustness concepts.
- Proficient in Python (PyTorch/JAX/Ray RLlib) and at least one of C++ or CUDA.
- Hands-on experience with robotics simulation (Isaac Lab/MuJoCo/PyBullet) and sim2real techniques.
- Experience training/deploying policies for navigation, manipulation, or locomotion on real robots or autonomous vehicles.
Benefits
Comp & perks- Cross-disciplinary mentorship
- Real hardware cadence
- Safety-first learning
ATS Keywords
✓ Tailor your resumeApplicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
reinforcement learningcontrol theorymotion planningPythonC++CUDArobotics simulationpolicy trainingtrajectory optimizationdomain randomization
Soft Skills
problem-solvingadaptabilitycollaborationcommunicationcritical thinkingattention to detailcreativityintuitive controlsafety awarenessrobustness