2025 PhD Software Engineer Intern (Rider Pricing and Incentives), United States

We’re looking for PhD candidates in the machine learning and optimization domain to intern on the Rider Pricing and Incentives team during summer 2025 (12 weeks). You will be embedded in an engineering team and work closely with other specialists, data scientists, and product managers. As a PhD intern, you will work on an exciting yet bold problem in depth independently, under the supervision of an experienced engineer on that team. **About the Role** At Uber, we work on many ambitious engineering products covering many lines of business as well as the underlying platform technologies that power those businesses. We foster growth and increase profitability of Uber by pushing the frontiers of machine learning, constrained optimization, statistics, data science and economics and developing highly reliable and scalable platforms to accelerate Uber’s impact on the transportation industry. As a PhD software engineer intern, you will have a lot of opportunities to work with product managers, data scientists and, of course, engineers from different teams. You will have an opportunity to learn how to iterate over a product for greater success while demonstrating your area of expertise (machine learning, statistics, constrained optimization, distributed system, etc.). This is a unique opportunity to grow your skills with real-world experience and do highly impactful, yet fun work at the same time. It is an ambitious yet rewarding job! **About the Team** The Rider Pricing and Incentives team at Uber plays a crucial role in developing and optimizing algorithms and systems that determine the trip prices, discounting and promotions for Uber riders worldwide. You will work on complex modeling, pricing and incentives targeting problems, leveraging data and building ML algorithms to ensure accurate and robust pricing models and successful pricing optimization outcomes. The team is broadly part of the Marketplace organization, a central pillar to Uber’s core technology which more broadly includes pricing, incentives/investments, matching, surge, etc. As a key team within Uber, we manage the complex dynamics between short term optimized pricing and long-term optimized pricing, promotion targeting and continuously innovating to enhance the overall user experience for riders. Improvements in these systems increase revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and positively impact the experience of millions of users worldwide, as well as their ability to get around in the world. ## **What You'll Do** - Drive exciting, ambitious, and impact ML and optimization projects from end to end - Collaborate with product managers and data scientists closely on your assigned project - Be motivated to own projects and push them forward with independence - Make data driven decisions, with exceptional execution - Think with the end user in mind and Uber’s pricing better for our customers ## **Basic Qualifications** - Currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program studying machine learning, data mining, artificial intelligence, constrained optimization, statistics, or a related quantitative field - Candidates must have at least one semester/quarter of their education left following the internship - Knowledge of underlying technical foundations of statistics, machine learning, optimization, or systems, etc. - Experience in one or more object-oriented languages, including C++, Java, Python, or Go ## **Preferred Qualifications** - Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and business partners - Experience in simplifying/converting business problems into technical problems - Research mentality with a bias towards action to structure a project from idea to experimentation to prototype to implementation - Experience presenting at industry recognized academic conferences and a good publishing record For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles: The base hourly rate amount for this role is USD$67.00 per hour. You will also be eligible for various benefits. Uber is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing [this form](https://forms.gle/aDWTk9k6xtMU25Y5A). Offices continue to be central to collaboration and Uber’s cultural identity. Unless formally approved to work fully remotely, Uber expects employees to spend at least half of their work time in their assigned office. For certain roles, such as those based at green-light hubs, employees are expected to be in-office for 100% of their time. Please speak with your recruiter to better understand in-office expectations for this role.