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The Washington Post · 1 month ago

Summer Intern, PhD AI/ML Scientist

DC-Washington-TWP Headquarters

Internship

Onsite

Intern

$35/hr - $40/hr

The Washington Post is a leading news organization on a mission to reinvent how journalism is created and delivered. As a PhD intern, you will work with scientists and engineers to tackle challenges in machine learning and generative AI, contributing to innovative projects that enhance news personalization and delivery.

Newspapers

Growth Opportunities

No H1B

Responsibilities

Lead a full-cycle applied research project from problem definition to experiment to production-ready prototype

Conduct original research in machine learning, generative AI, NLP, recommender systems, RL, causal inference, or information retrieval

Work with large-scale behavioral, content, and interaction datasets to uncover insights and build intelligent systems

Develop novel algorithms for: Retrieval-augmented generation and grounding, Multi-turn and agentic search, Personalization and user modeling, Reinforcement learning for metering and pricing, Large-scale ranking and embeddings

Design and run A/B tests, offline evaluations, and model-driven product experiments

Collaborate closely with engineering, design, and product partners across the organization

Publish internal research and, where appropriate, externalize work at top conferences

Qualification

PhD in relevant fieldMachine LearningGenerative AINatural Language ProcessingPythonPyTorchTensorFlowReinforcement LearningCausal InferenceInformation RetrievalLarge-scale datasetsCommunication

Required

Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, NLP, Information Retrieval, or a related field

Strong research background in one or more areas: LLMs/GenAI, NLP, IR/Search, Recommender Systems, RL, Causal Inference, Optimization, Graph ML, or Representation Learning

Proficiency in at least one ML-oriented programming language or framework: Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow

Experience handling large-scale datasets, distributed computing, or experimentation platforms

Ability to independently define research questions, design experiments, and synthesize findings

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in explaining complex technical ideas to non-technical audiences

Preferred

Publications in machine learning, AI, NLP, IR, recommender systems, or related areas

Experience building or evaluating Conversational Systems, RAG systems, Fine-Tuning LLMs, Multiarm Bandits, and Reinforcement Learning

Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS), big-data technologies (e.g., Spark, Beam, BigQuery), and/or real-time serving systems

Strong interest in applying ML to real-world solutions that power personalization and audience engagement with journalism

Benefits

Exclusive events like our annual intern hackathon

Lunch seminars from leaders across the company

Company

The Washington Post

Glassdoor4.1

The Washington Post is an award-winning news leader whose mission is to connect, inform, and enlighten local, national and global readers with trustworthy reporting, in-depth analysis and engaging opinions.

Founded in 1877