1

Research Intern Jobs in San Ramon, CA (NOW HIRING)

As a Generative AI Research Scientist Intern at Canva, you'll advance the frontier of agentic AI-building autonomous systems that can reason, plan, use tools, and act on behalf of hundreds of ...

We are looking for passionate Research Interns at the BS, MS, or PhD level with significant experience working on Videogen to join our team and make an immediate impact. In this role, you will ...

While we have a very limited number of intern opportunities, we welcome applications in particular for research-focused internships at all levels. At Dyna Robotics , we build technology for the real ...

Showing results 21-40

Research Intern information

See San Ramon, CA salary details

$2.3K

$7.2K

$8.7K

How much do research intern jobs pay per month?

As of Aug 12, 2026, the average monthly pay for research intern in San Ramon, CA is $7,196.25, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $4,933.33 and $8,566.67 per month, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a research intern?

To thrive as a Research Intern, you need strong analytical abilities, attention to detail, and foundational knowledge in your field of study, often supported by enrollment in a relevant degree program. Familiarity with data analysis software (such as SPSS, R, or Excel), literature databases, and sometimes laboratory equipment or programming languages is typically required. Effective communication, curiosity, and time management are vital soft skills that help interns collaborate and contribute meaningfully to research projects. These competencies are important for producing accurate findings, supporting team objectives, and gaining valuable hands-on experience in research environments.

What is the difference between Research Intern vs Research Assistant?

AspectResearch InternResearch Assistant
Required CredentialsTypically students or recent graduates; some internships may require coursework in the fieldOften students or early-career professionals; may require some relevant coursework or experience
Work EnvironmentTemporary, project-based; often in academic, government, or corporate settingsMore consistent, ongoing support roles in labs or research teams
Employer & Industry UsageCommon in universities, research institutes, and corporate R&D departmentsPrimarily in academic labs, research institutions, and industry R&D teams

Research Interns typically are students or recent graduates gaining initial experience through temporary roles, while Research Assistants are more involved in ongoing research projects, often with some prior coursework or experience. Both roles support research activities but differ mainly in duration and level of responsibility.

What is a research intern?

Research interns are individuals, often students or recent graduates, who work temporarily in a research setting to gain practical experience and contribute to ongoing projects. They assist with tasks such as data collection, analysis, literature reviews, and sometimes experimental work under the supervision of experienced researchers. Research internships are valuable opportunities for interns to develop relevant skills, broaden their academic or professional networks, and explore potential career paths in research or academia.

What are some typical challenges a research intern might encounter when starting out, and how can they be addressed?

Research Interns often face challenges such as adapting to new research methodologies, managing multiple tasks with tight deadlines, and learning to navigate academic or corporate research environments. To address these, it's helpful to proactively communicate with your supervisor for clear expectations, seek mentorship from experienced team members, and utilize organizational tools to track assignments. Embracing a collaborative mindset and asking questions early on can also ease the transition and foster professional growth.
What are the most commonly searched types of Research jobs in San Ramon, CA? The most popular types of Research jobs in San Ramon, CA are:
What job categories do people searching Research Intern jobs in San Ramon, CA look for? The top searched job categories for Research Intern jobs in San Ramon, CA are:
What cities near San Ramon, CA are hiring for Research Intern jobs? Cities near San Ramon, CA with the most Research Intern job openings:
Infographic showing various Research Intern job openings in San Ramon, CA as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 1% As Needed, 82% Full Time, 14% Part Time, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 86% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $86,355 per year, or $41.5 per hour.

PhD Research Scientist Intern

Canva

San Francisco, CA โ€ข On-site

$157K/yr

Full-time, Internship

Posted 6 days ago


Job description

Company Description
Job Description
Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.
Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, ไฝ ๅฅฝ, hallo, vรญtejte!
We're looking for current PhD students ready to bring their research into the real world and help shape the culture of AI at Canva.
Our full-time, 16 week AI Research Internship starts in September. During your internship, you'll work directly with Canva's AI team on a live, industry-scale project, turning part of your PhD journey into real world impact.
You'll gain hands on experience with real data, production infrastructure and real deadlines, while learning from and working alongside the researchers and engineerings creating Canva's next generation of AI-powered experiences.
Where and how you can work
Our global HQ is in Sydney, Australia, and as we continue to grow in our largest global market, we've made our way from down under to San Francisco.
Our Jackson Square campus blends the neighbourhoods vibrant downtown charm with Canva's signature flair. The space is designed for both deep work and collaboration, along with spaces for Canvanauts to relax, recharge and connect.
This role is based in San Francisco, and we're looking for someone who calls it home. Our hybrid way of working gives you flexibility - you'll have the option to work from home as well as connecting and collaborating with your team in-person, on campus. We trust teams to choose the balance that empowers them to achieve their goals.
What you'd be doing in this role
As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that's all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things you'll be working on when you start, but this will likely evolve.
At the moment, this role is focused on:
  • Developing a synthetic data pipeline that produces conversations with our design agent - user turns, tool calls, and design-state changes - conditioned on personas and statistical criteria on requests derived from real usage.
  • Combining persona-conditioned user-simulation techniques (e.g. evolved/adversarial personas, dual-control agent frameworks) with our existing intent-labeling and clustering pipeline, to keep synthetic output in-distribution with real usage.
  • Measuring realism gap, distributional fit, and downstream evaluation quality (separability and agreement against our existing ELO rankings) with rigorous, reproducible validation.
  • Collaborating with the eval/labelling, research, and product teams to determine whether and how synthetic data can substitute for real user-generated content in evaluation.
  • Contributing methodology and findings back to the broader research community through publication where results support it - this is an active, largely unsolved area of research.

You're probably a match if you have:
  • You're currently completing a PhD (ideally third year or later).
  • You have experience with human-AI interaction, conversational agents, or user-modeling research.
  • You can design, run, and interpret machine-learning experiments with strong scientific rigour.
  • You can develop research code for data processing, model training, and evaluation.
  • You communicate technical work clearly in writing and presentations.
  • You enjoy collaborating with researchers and engineers on technically challenging problems.
  • You're a clear communicator who can collaborate effectively across teams.

At Canva, we're building a future powered by AI that's as magical as it is impactful. As a Generative AI Research Scientist Intern at Canva, you'll advance the frontier of agentic AI-building autonomous systems that can reason, plan, use tools, and act on behalf of hundreds of millions of users. You'll explore the boundaries of what agents can achieve in real-world productivity and creative scenarios, and bring that research into Canva's core product experiences-across design, presentations, documents, spreadsheets, video, and other multimodal creation and collaboration workflows.
Other stuff to know
We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.
At Canva, we value fairness, and we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring internal equity within the team in each region. The salary for this position is fixed at $157,000. When calculating offers, we make salary decisions based on market data, your experience levels, and internal benchmarks of your peers in the same domain and job level.
Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.