AI Research Intern

Location: Sunnyvale, CA, us Employment Type: {'id': 'intern', 'label': 'Intern'}

Company Description

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

You will join Future Forward, Intuitive's advanced concepts group, and report to an engineering lead on the team building AI for the next generation of robotic-assisted surgery. You will own an open-ended research and prototyping project in areas such as supervised autonomy and automation for robotic-assisted surgery, and AI that helps care teams deliver care more consistently and efficiently. The work draws on computer vision, generative AI, robotics, and agentic AI, and we will shape the exact project with you based on your background and the team's priorities. A successful internship ends with a working prototype, clear evidence of how well it works, and findings the team can keep building on.

Essential Job Duties

Own an open-ended research and prototyping project, scoped with your mentor.

Explore how computer vision, generative AI, and agentic AI can be applied to new problems in surgery and the operating room.

Build working prototypes and evaluate them against clear baselines.

Work closely with researchers, engineers, and clinical experts.

Share your results through documentation and a final presentation and contribute to publications or patent filings where results warrant it.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience

Research or applied experience in at least one of computer vision, generative AI, robotics or autonomy, or agentic AI (LLM agents and tool use).

Strong Python skills and hands-on experience with a deep learning framework such as PyTorch.

A track record of taking a loosely defined problem to a result, shown through publications, open-source work, or projects others have used.

Sound experimental practice: you can set up a fair comparison and tell a real improvement from noise.

Clear written and verbal communication with both technical and non-technical audiences.

University Hiring Program Eligibility Requirements

University Enrollment: Must be currently enrolled in and returning to an accredited degree-seeking academic program after the internship.

Internship Work Period: Must be available to work 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 a Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or related degree-seeking program at the Doctorate level.

Master's level students would also be considered based on two or more years of relevant industry or research experience.

Working Conditions

None

Preferred Skills and Experience

Publications at leading venues such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CoRL, RSS, ICRA, or IROS.

3D vision, scene understanding, or spatial reasoning.

Generative models (for example diffusion or vision-language models) or LLM agents applied to real-world tasks.

Robot learning, robotics simulation (for example NVIDIA Isaac Sim/Lab or MuJoCo), or ROS 2.

Industry experience building ML or AI systems that other people relied on.

Interest in or exposure to healthcare, surgical, or medical robotics.

Additional Information

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