PhD Residency - ML​/SWE, Orchestration of Agentic Systems, Early Stage Project

2026 PhD Residency – ML / SWE, Orchestration of Agentic Systems (Early Stage Project)

Join the PhD Residency role at X, The Moonshot Factory
.

Be among the first 25 applicants.

• Collaborate with X project team to experiment and build novel insights to business process optimization and ML-accelerated data ingestion.
• Rapidly develop prototypes of artificial intelligence, machine learning models applied to business process workflows.
• Apply the latest data science techniques to build and deploy data pipelines and exploratory data analysis on large-scale datasets.
• Develop value chain maps, evaluate costs and revenues to assess and recommend areas in which to de-risk the project.
• Work cross-functionally with experts across X, Alphabet, and academia.
• Engage with the intern community during the program (attending tech talks, colloquium, and learning moonshot thinking), and most importantly HAVE FUN!

• Embedded into one of our confidential or public X projects.
• Compensated competitively and receive benefits.
• Part of a lively community of AI and ML Residents.
• Attend tech‑talks with AI leaders from across X.

• Active PhD program in Computer Science.
• Working experience with LLMs, Transformer architectures and data pipelines.
• Fluent in Python, ML APIs (Tensorflow, Pytorch or JAX).
• Very strong analytical skills—capability to gather and analyze large quantities of information and turn them into insightful business recommendations.
• Good at problem stating and problem solving, and turning ambiguous problem spaces into radical solutions. Must be able to break down problems independently.
• Can‑do attitude, willing to learn new tools and content to become an effective thought partner with project teams.
• Excellent communication skills, e.g. experience writing strategy documents, delivering presentations, and openness to liaise with senior external partners.
• Motivated by making the world a better place through technology and wanting to be part of a team that makes this happen.

• Ability to thrive on ambiguity, set own goals and effectively deliver them in a fast‑changing environment.
• Adept at influencing without authority, working cross‑functionally with different teams in order to drive decision making.
• Experience in using distributed computing resources, such as GCP, AWS, Azure or HPC clusters.

• Location:
  
  X's headquarters in Mountain View, CA
• Start Date(s):
  Early 2026
• Duration:
  Flexible 4 months to 1 year program based on project team needs and your availability
• US base salary range: $109,000 - $150,000 + benefits. Compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only and do not include benefits.

Mid‑Senior level

Full‑time

Engineering and Information Technology

Research