Skild AI Internship 2027–2028: Roles, Interview Process & How to Apply
Last updated: July 2026
Skild AI has raised over $2 billion at a $14 billion valuation, yet the company employs roughly 100 people. That ratio, approximately $20 million in funding per employee, signals one of the most selective hiring bars in robotics AI. For the 2027 cycle, intern slots are estimated in the single digits, and the only confirmed research intern was a final-year PhD from UPenn with multiple published papers. The implication: if you want a seat, you need a research portfolio that stands on its own before you apply.
Quick Facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Where to apply | skild.ai/career. Also posted on Simplify, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and the LSVP portfolio board |
| Application window (2027–28) | Not confirmed. Estimated January to March 2027 for summer 2027 roles, based on one confirmed intern datapoint and startup hiring norms. Low confidence |
| Rolling? | Likely yes. With roughly 100 employees, hiring is opportunistic rather than cycle-based. Roles appear as team needs arise |
| Eligibility | PhD strongly preferred for research/ML internships. Master's with strong research background may be considered. Top CS/robotics programs (CMU, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, UPenn) and published papers at top venues strongly favored |
| Duration | Estimated 10 to 16 weeks for summer roles. The one confirmed research intern stayed roughly 4 to 5 months (September 2025 to early 2026) |
| Compensation | No confirmed intern salary. Estimated $40 to $55 per hour for research/ML interns based on comparable robotics AI startup rates. Robot Operator roles pay $20 to $25 per hour. Glassdoor compensation rating: 5.0/5.0 |
| Visa sponsorship | US work authorization required. F-1 CPT/OPT likely accepted. No confirmed direct visa sponsorship for interns |
| Locations | Pittsburgh, PA (HQ, primary R&D hub) and San Mateo, CA (Bay Area office, confirmed intern location). Bengaluru, India office unlikely for US interns |
| # Programs | 3 to 4 estimated tracks: Research/ML Intern (confirmed), Cinematography Intern (confirmed), Robotics Engineering Intern (inferred), Robot Operator/Technician (intern-adjacent) |
Three numbers frame the challenge: $14 billion valuation, roughly 100 employees, and an estimated fewer than 10 intern slots per cycle. Skild AI does not run a structured internship program, so positions are filled opportunistically. A PhD in robotics or ML from a top program and published papers at venues like ICRA, CoRL, or NeurIPS are the practical floor for research internships.
Externships are short, remote projects where you finish real work for a real company. The Wayfair AI Agent Engineering Externship and Beats by Dre Data Analytics Externship build the ML engineering, data analysis, and system-design evidence a Skild AI application demands. Explore all Externships.
What Is a Skild AI Internship?
A Skild AI internship is an embedded research placement at one of the fastest-growing robotics AI startups in the world. The company is building the Skild Brain, a general-purpose foundation model that serves as a universal intelligence layer for robots of any form factor, from humanoids to quadrupeds to industrial arms. Interns work directly alongside a team drawn from CMU, Meta, Tesla, NVIDIA, and Google, and the one confirmed research intern produced a publishable demonstration of end-to-end robot policy learning for autonomous cooking within months. There is no rotation, no structured curriculum, and no large cohort. You join a specific team, tackle a real research problem, and are expected to produce results that advance the company's mission. Given the company's trajectory, from zero to roughly $30 million in revenue within months and partnerships with ABB Robotics, Universal Robots, and Foxconn, a strong performance positions you for a full-time role at a company that may define the next decade of embodied AI.
When Do Skild AI Internship Applications Open for 2027–2028?
Skild AI does not publish a structured recruiting calendar, so the timeline below is estimated from one confirmed intern datapoint, the company's hiring patterns, and general robotics AI startup norms. The one confirmed research intern, a UPenn PhD student, began in September 2025, and a Cinematography Intern posting appeared in September 2025 for a Summer 2026 start, suggesting the company may post roles six to nine months before the internship begins. For summer 2027, that points to late 2026 or early 2027 as the likely window. The critical insight: with roughly 100 employees and estimated single-digit intern slots, every role is filled the moment the right candidate appears. There is no priority deadline because there is no waitlist.
Summer 2027 internship postings are not yet live. This is the build window: strengthen your research portfolio, publish or submit to ICRA/CoRL/NeurIPS, and begin networking with Skild AI employees, many of whom come from CMU, Meta, Tesla, and NVIDIA.
Estimated application window for summer 2027 roles. Monitor skild.ai/career, Simplify, and the LSVP jobs board weekly. Seek employee referrals; 50% of Glassdoor interviewees got in through referrals. Apply the day a relevant posting appears.
Estimated interview period. Expect a recruiter screen, a live coding round on CoderPad (e.g. implementing Multi-Headed Self Attention in PyTorch from scratch), and a final interview loop with technical, behavioral, and additional coding rounds.
Estimated internship period. Research roles may run 10 to 20 weeks. The one confirmed research intern produced a publishable robot-learning demonstration, which became part of his PhD portfolio.
Why You Must Apply the Week Applications Open
Skild AI does not publish a formal application window or deadline. The company's roughly 100-person headcount means intern positions are created on an ad-hoc basis as teams identify needs, and Glassdoor data shows that 50% of interviewees got in through employee referrals. The practical implication: by the time a role appears on the careers page, the strongest candidates may already be in the pipeline through referrals. Start networking with Skild employees in fall 2026, set alerts on the careers page and Simplify, and apply the day a relevant posting appears. Given the estimated single-digit intern slots, there is no second wave.
Which Skild AI Internship Programs Should You Target?
Skild AI does not run a structured internship program with named tracks. The following roles are based on one confirmed research internship, one confirmed cinematography posting, and inferred tracks from the company's nine departments and 61 active openings. If you are targeting a research or ML role, your application is effectively a research proposal: can you contribute publishable work to the Skild Brain?
| Program | Focus | Duration | Key skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Intern — Robot Learning / ML (Confirmed) | Foundation model training, end-to-end robot policy learning, sim-to-real transfer. The confirmed intern worked on autonomous cooking using the Skild Brain | 10 to 20 weeks | PyTorch, deep learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, published research at top venues |
| Cinematography Intern (Confirmed) | Product videography, short-form social media content, editing and post-production of robotics/AI demonstrations | ~12 weeks | Video editing, short-form content creation, strong portfolio, familiarity with robotics/AI |
| Robotics Engineering Intern (Inferred) | Robotics software development, simulation, sensor integration, and hardware-software interfaces | ~12 weeks | Python, ROS, NVIDIA Isaac Sim, C/C++, embedded systems, control theory |
| Robot Operator / Technician (Intern-Adjacent) | Hardware operation, data collection for model training, lab support, and robot maintenance | ~12 weeks | Hands-on mechanical aptitude, safety protocols, electrical engineering basics |
See current openings on the Skild AI careers page. The company's 2026 partnership announcements with ABB Robotics, Universal Robots, and Foxconn suggest expanding deployment engineering needs, which may open additional intern-adjacent roles in 2027.
What Are the Eligibility Requirements?
Skild AI's requirements vary by track, but the research/ML internship, the most sought-after role, has a notably high bar:
• PhD strongly preferred: the only confirmed research intern was a final-year PhD at UPenn with multiple published papers. This is consistent with the research-heavy nature of the company and its founding team of two former CMU tenure-track professors.
• Top programs favored: both founders are CMU alumni, and the team is recruited from Meta, Tesla, NVIDIA, Amazon, and Google. Applicants from CMU, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and UPenn are likely given priority, though this is not stated explicitly.
• Published research expected: papers at ICRA, CoRL, NeurIPS, ICLR, or CVPR serve as the practical evidence threshold for research/ML roles. A strong personal website showcasing projects is a must.
• Work authorization: US work authorization required. F-1 CPT/OPT is likely accepted. No confirmed data on direct visa sponsorship for interns.
• Non-research tracks: Cinematography and Robot Operator roles are open to undergraduate, master's, or art-school students with relevant portfolios or hands-on experience.
Do I Need a PhD to Intern at Skild AI?
For the research/ML track, a PhD is the practical floor. The only confirmed research intern was a final-year PhD student, and the interview includes writing Multi-Headed Self Attention from scratch in PyTorch without autocomplete, a task that assumes graduate-level ML fluency. However, the Cinematography Intern posting was open to art-school students and graduates, and Robot Operator roles ($20 to $25/hr) appear accessible to candidates with hands-on mechanical experience and no graduate degree. If you are a master's student with exceptional published research, a cold application to the research track is not impossible, but the odds are steep.
What Skills Does Skild AI Look For, and How Do You Build Them?
Read across Skild AI's Glassdoor interview reports, the confirmed research intern's profile, and the company's active engineering postings, and the pattern is clear. PyTorch and deep learning appear in every technical evaluation. Reinforcement learning and computer vision are core to the Skild Brain's architecture. And the live coding round, implementing transformers from scratch on CoderPad, is designed to filter anyone who has not built these systems by hand. But the technical bar is only half the picture. Skild AI is a roughly 100-person startup moving at research-lab speed, so the ability to work independently on ambiguous problems and produce publishable results matters as much as any single framework.
What Skild AI looks for in interns
Skills across 5 Skild AI intern & analyst job descriptions · 2025–26 Glassdoor interview reports and confirmed intern/engineering role profiles, projecting 2026–2027
Method: full-text analysis of five Glassdoor interview reports for Robotics Software Engineer, Post Training Engineer, and Robotics Technician roles, plus the confirmed research intern profile. Prior-cycle basis; Skild AI's research-heavy culture means publication record and independent research ability are evaluated outside of formal JD qualifications.
How Is Demand for Robotics and ML Interns Moving Right Now?
Robotics and ML intern hiring right now: July 2026
Across US machine-learning-intern and robotics-engineer postings tracked this week · aggregate market data, all employers
The robotics AI segment is in a funding-driven hiring surge. Skild AI, Physical Intelligence, Figure AI, and others are all scaling teams simultaneously, which means the absolute number of robotics-ML intern seats is rising even as competition for each one stays fierce.
Method: aggregate analysis of US software-engineer-intern and machine-learning-intern postings via Adzuna, July 2026 baseline. Robotics-AI funding figure from industry reporting. The sample indexes a fraction of all US postings, so figures show direction and relative level, not total market share.
Build These Skills Before You Apply
And every skill in that chart maps to a remote Externship where you finish a real project before a role opens.
| Skill (from real JDs) | JD evidence | Externship that builds it |
|---|---|---|
| ML engineering, deep learning & foundation models | Interview data: "write Multi-Headed Self Attention in PyTorch from scratch" and "reinforcement learning, sim-to-real transfer" | Wayfair AI Agent Engineering |
| Data analysis, model evaluation & metrics-driven decisions | Research intern profile: evaluate robot policy performance, analyze training data, and measure sim-to-real transfer gaps | Beats by Dre Data Analytics |
| System design & cross-functional engineering | Interview data: "debug and optimize a coding problem, discuss time/space complexity" and final-loop behavioral rounds | Wayfair AI Agent Engineering |
How close is the overlap? The Wayfair project involves agent-engineering work that exercises the same build-train-evaluate loop Skild AI's technical interviews probe, and the Beats project produces the data-analysis portfolio a behavioral round rewards.
What Is the Skild AI Application and Interview Process Like?
Skild AI's interview process is lean and research-focused, typically spanning three to four stages over several weeks:
1. Monitor and apply. Check skild.ai/career regularly starting fall 2026. Roles are also posted on Simplify, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and the LSVP portfolio board. Apply the day a relevant posting appears; with single-digit intern slots, there is no grace period.
2. Seek referrals. Glassdoor data shows 50% of interviewees got in via employee referral and 50% via campus recruiting. Networking with Skild employees, many recruited from CMU, Meta, Tesla, and NVIDIA, significantly increases your chances. Secure the referral before you apply.
3. Recruiter screen (30 minutes). Background review, technical alignment, and resume walkthrough. For Robot Operator/Technician roles, this may be the primary evaluation. For research roles, expect questions about your published work and research direction.
4. Live coding round on CoderPad. Debug and optimize coding problems, implement ML components from scratch (example: write Multi-Headed Self Attention in PyTorch with no autocomplete or AI assistance), and discuss time and space complexity. This is the primary technical filter.
5. Final interview loop. Technical, behavioral, and additional coding interviews. One candidate reported the full loop spanning several weeks. Note: a negative Glassdoor review flagged six weeks of silence after interviews, so proactive follow-up may be necessary.
Two skills to drill are clear: PyTorch implementation fluency for the live coding round (be ready to write transformer components from scratch, cold, on a blank editor) and a research narrative for the recruiter screen (why does your work connect to the Skild Brain?). The company has been criticized for slow communication after interviews, so plan for a multi-week wait and follow up politely if you have not heard back within two weeks of the final round.
What Students on Reddit Say
Skild AI is too young and small for significant intern-specific Reddit discussion, but several threads discuss the company and its technology, all paraphrased.
When Skild AI announced its $300M Series A at a $1.5B valuation, the robotics community debated whether a foundation-model approach to robot control could justify the price tag, with some expressing skepticism about generalization claims and others citing the founders' strong CMU research pedigree as reason for optimism.
In a thread asking whether any physical-AI foundation model companies have real commercial deployments, commenters discussed Skild AI alongside Physical Intelligence and others, noting that these companies claim to be the OpenAI of robotics but questioning whether the business model has been proven at scale.
When Skild AI's Series C pushed the valuation to $14 billion, discussion focused on the single-foundation-model approach and the unprecedented level of robotics-AI funding, with commenters noting that total sector funding hit $13.8 billion in 2025.
How Do You Stand Out at a Company with Roughly 100 Employees?
Three moves, all before a posting appears. First, build a referral path: 50% of Glassdoor interviewees got in through employee referrals, and with a team drawn from CMU, Meta, Tesla, and NVIDIA, the network is reachable through academic conferences, lab alumni channels, and LinkedIn. Second, publish or perish: the only confirmed research intern was a final-year PhD with papers at top venues, and the live coding round asks you to implement transformer attention from scratch in PyTorch, so your ML fundamentals need to be hands-on, not textbook. Third, bring a robotics story with real artifacts. Skild AI builds foundation models for physical robots, so a simulation project, a hardware demonstration, or a published paper connecting learning to embodied control is the kind of evidence that survives a 100-person company's hiring bar. If you lack published research, a completed Externship that shows you can ship ML work on a deadline gives you a tangible deliverable to reference.
What Other Companies Should You Consider?
Skild AI is not the only robotics-adjacent AI company hiring research interns. If you are building a robotics and ML internship list, these are the obvious neighbors:
- NVIDIAGPU and robotics platform partner (Isaac GR00T) with the largest intern program in the hardware-AI spaceGuide →
- Google DeepMindWorld-class robotics research team with structured intern programs and academic publication pipelinesGuide →
- OpenAIFoundation model leader with research internships that overlap in transformer and policy-learning expertiseGuide →
- MetaFAIR robotics research group with larger cohorts and structured mentorship for PhD-level internsGuide →
- Scale AIAI data infrastructure company with ML engineering internships and a strong new-grad pipelineGuide →
Our tech internships summer 2027 guide maps the whole landscape, timeline by timeline.
FAQ
Does Skild AI offer internships?
Yes, but slots are extremely limited. Skild AI has offered both research internships (confirmed via a UPenn PhD student who interned from September 2025 to early 2026) and creative internships (a Cinematography Intern was posted in September 2025 for Summer 2026). The company employs roughly 100 people, so intern positions are created on an ad-hoc basis rather than through a structured program.
How much do Skild AI interns get paid?
No confirmed intern salary data is available. Based on comparable robotics AI startup rates and available market data, research and ML interns likely earn $40 to $55 per hour (approximately $83,000 to $114,000 annualized). Robot Operator roles pay $20 to $25 per hour. Glassdoor rates Skild AI's overall compensation at 5.0 out of 5.0, though the sample size is very small.
What is the Skild AI interview process like?
Based on Glassdoor data from five interviews, the process typically includes a recruiter screen focused on background and technical alignment, a live coding round on CoderPad (example: write Multi-Headed Self Attention in PyTorch from scratch without autocomplete), and a final interview loop with technical, behavioral, and additional coding interviews. Average difficulty is rated 3.0 out of 5.0. One candidate reported being ghosted for six weeks after interviews, so follow up proactively.
Do I need a PhD to intern at Skild AI?
For research and ML internships, a PhD is strongly preferred. The only confirmed research intern was a final-year PhD student with multiple published papers. For other roles such as the Cinematography Intern or Robot Operator positions, undergraduate or master's candidates may qualify. Art-school or film-program students are eligible for creative internships.
When do Skild AI internship applications open for summer 2027?
No official dates have been announced. Based on one confirmed intern datapoint and startup hiring norms, applications are estimated to open between January and March 2027. The company does not follow a structured recruiting calendar, so monitor skild.ai/career, Simplify, and the LSVP jobs board starting fall 2026.
Is the Skild AI internship in-person or remote?
Intern locations are primarily in-person. The one confirmed research intern worked in the San Mateo, CA (Bay Area) office. The Cinematography Intern posting listed San Mateo as a hybrid role. Pittsburgh, PA (the company's headquarters and primary R&D hub) is also a likely intern location. Given the hands-on nature of robotics research, fully remote internships are unlikely for technical roles.
What are the best alternatives to a Skild AI internship?
Comparable companies hiring robotics and ML interns include Physical Intelligence, NVIDIA (Isaac GR00T team), Figure AI, Tesla (Optimus), Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, and Google DeepMind's robotics group. If you want to build ML and robotics portfolio evidence before any of these applications open, a remote Externship provides finished project work on a shorter timeline.
Skild AI's roughly 100-person team and single-digit intern slots make this one of the most selective placements in robotics AI. But every seat is won one referral and one PyTorch implementation at a time. Spend the runway building proof: a remote Externship turns 'interested in robotics AI' into a finished project you can point at when a posting appears.
About the Author
Bifei Wang has spent 17 years focused on human flow and the growth of young professionals, spanning international education, career training and coaching, and recruitment process outsourcing. Over 7 years at Extern, he has had one-on-one sessions with thousands of students exploring careers in consulting, finance, tech, marketing, and data, giving him a firsthand view of how the job market has shifted for early-career professionals and what it actually takes to break in.
