PhD Research Intern, Multi-Modal Foundation Encoder for Perception

Zoox

. Lead the development of a multi-modality (vision, LiDAR, Radar, and language), temporal foundation encoder to support 3D object detection & tracking, 3D segmentation (occupancy), and live maps.

Posted 4/21/2026internshipFoster City • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesEntry Level💰 $9,500 per monthWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Lead the development of a multi-modality (vision, LiDAR, Radar, and language), temporal foundation encoder to support 3D object detection & tracking, 3D segmentation (occupancy), and live maps.
Aim to significantly improve system performance on long-tail events and rare classes by utilizing a large-capacity foundation model to learn rich representations across different sensor modalities.
Improve perception in adverse environmental conditions (such as medium to heavy rain and fog).
Achieve long-range sensing for highway driving and build robustness to occlusion.
Explore novel directions such as tri-modal foundation models with self-supervised pre-training, radar-language grounding for zero-shot detection, efficient sensor fusion via sparse cross-attention, or integrating 3D Gaussian Splats for dynamic agent geometry and streaming sparse Gaussian occupancy prediction.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Currently working towards a Ph.D., or advanced degree in a relevant engineering program
Good academic standing
Able to commit to a 12-week internship during one of the following summer 2026 cohorts: May 18th - August 7th, OR May 26th - August 14th, OR June 15th - September 4th
At least one previous industry internship, co-op, or project completed in a relevant area
Ability to relocate to the Bay Area, California (or Boston, Massachusetts) for the duration of the internship
Interns at Zoox may not use any proprietary information they are working on as part of their thesis, any published work with their university, or to be distributed to anyone outside of Zoox

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical insurance
Housing stipend
Relocation assistance (based on eligibility)

ATS Keywords

✓ Tailor your resume

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools

3D object detection3D segmentationtemporal foundation encodersensor fusionself-supervised pre-trainingradar-language groundingsparse cross-attention3D Gaussian Splatsstreaming sparse Gaussian occupancy predictionlong-range sensing

Certifications

Ph.D.advanced degree in engineering