Role Overview

The Research Intern is a PhD student who will join the team for a fixed-term internship to contribute to an active research project. Working closely with a Research Scientist as their primary supervisor, and alongside the Chief Scientist and other researchers, the intern will help shape and carry out a well-defined research question aligned with the company’s priority areas. Interns are expected to bring fresh ideas and technical depth from their doctoral work, engage critically with the relevant literature, and take ownership of their project. The internship is designed to produce a concrete outcome, such as a paper submission, workshop contribution, or open-source release, by the end of the placement.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with your supervisor to refine a research question within the company’s priority areas and help shape the project’s direction from the start of the internship.
• Get up to speed quickly on prior and current work related to the project and identify gaps or opportunities the project can address.
• Implement methods, build prototypes, and carry out rigorous experiments, with careful attention to baselines, evaluation, and reproducibility.
• Draw on your own expertise to suggest new approaches, challenge assumptions, and enrich the team’s thinking.
• Interpret findings critically and share progress regularly with your supervisor, the Chief Scientist, and the wider research team through meetings, discussions, and written updates.
• Engage with other researchers and interns, take part in reading groups and research discussions, and contribute constructively to the team’s culture.
• Work toward a tangible result by the end of the internship, such as a paper or workshop submission, a technical report, or an open-source release.
• Leave behind clean, well-documented code and clear notes so the work can be continued or built on after the internship ends. (In some cases, there may be opportunities to continue collaborating with the company after completion of the internship).

Requirements

Essential

• Currently enrolled in a PhD in computer science, machine learning, mathematics or related field.
• Research experience in an area relevant to the company’s priorities, evidenced in your doctoral work.
• Strong programming skills using agentic frameworks (e.g., Claude Code and Codex), and experience implementing and running research experiments using PyTorch.
• Familiarity with current research in your field, and the ability to read, evaluate, and build on recent literature.
• Solid grounding in the mathematical and methodological foundations of your research area.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain technical work to colleagues.
• Ability to work independently on a defined problem while collaborating well with a supervisor and team.
• Availability for a full-time, three-month placement.

Preferred

• First-author or significant co-author publications at leading venues in your field.
• Experience with large-scale experiments, including distributed training or working with large datasets.
• Contributions to open-source research software.
• Interest in the company’s specific research directions, with ideas about how your expertise could contribute.

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Why join Metacognition?

You’ll work alongside leading researchers, engineers and thinkers to build intelligent systems capable of learning, remembering and reasoning over time. We're an early stage startup with ambitious goals. Joining us will give you a genuine opportunity to shape both our technology and the company we become.

What you can expect

• Competitive remuneration
• Remote working
• The opportunity to work with leading researchers, engineers and industry experts
• A highly collaborative, fast-moving environment
• Meaningful ownership and the opportunity to influence how we build and grow
• Opportunities to learn, experiment and work on genuinely challenging problems

Metacognition is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds are valued. We encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Interested?

If you’re excited by ambitious problems, intelligent systems and the opportunity to build something from the ground up, we’d love to hear from you.