# Atlas VLA Research Intern

**Company:** [Boston Dynamics](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-companies/boston-dynamics)
**Location:** Waltham Office (POST)
**Work mode:** On-site
**Seniority:** Intern
**Employment type:** Internship
**Salary:** USD 30–70/hr
**Category:** Research
**Listed:** 2026-10-28

[View and apply on Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/atlas-vla-research-intern-R3317)

## What you'll do

- Lead VLA/WAM research project with hypotheses and experiments
- Prototype and deploy training recipes and algorithms on Atlas
- Integrate learned policies with low-level robot control
- Extend data pipelines for alternative robot data sources
- Write production-grade Python/C++ code for existing systems

## What you need

- PhD or research-heavy master's in CS, robotics, or ML
- Expertise training and deploying VLAs/WAMs for robotics
- Strong experimental hygiene and state-of-the-art knowledge

## Job description

Are you passionate about the intersection of foundation models and physical AI? As an intern on the **Atlas VLA Research Team**, you will join a world-class group of engineers and scientists dedicated to giving Atlas the intelligence to perceive, reason, and act.

  

Our team focuses on scaling Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models that leverage diverse data sources and training recipes to keep Atlas grounded and capable of performing challenging dexterous tasks. We are looking for PhD-level interns to lead research projects that push the boundaries of what humanoid robots can do. You won't work on pure theory; you'll be deploying your ideas directly onto the most sophisticated pieces of hardware on the planet.

  

**How you will make an impact:**

-   **Lead a high-stakes research project** establishing hypotheses and experiments for VLA / WAM performance, leveraging and extending our benchmarking, training, and evaluation with various data sources (teleoperation, UMI-style data, VQA, etc.).
-   **Prototype and deploy** your data collection / mixing / grading schemes, pre- / mid- / post-training recipes, and algorithms directly on Atlas, moving from simulation to hardware.
-   **Collaborate across teams** to integrate learned policies with low-level robot control.
-   **Extend data pipelines** that ingest alternative data sources to improve robot robustness.
-   **Write production-grade code** (Python/C++) that integrates with our existing systems, using AI coding agents to accelerate progress and minimize entropy while avoiding AI slop.

  

**We are looking for:**

-   Actively pursuing a PhD (preferred) or a research-heavy Master’s in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a related field.
-   Expertise in training and deploying imitation learning models (VLAs/WAMs) for robotics with strong experimental hygiene and clear knowledge of the state of the art and where the community can improve.

  

**Nice to have:**

-   Good grasp of machine learning best practices, architectures, and scaling laws among different domains.
-   Experience troubleshooting and deploying algorithms on physical robot platforms, especially mobile and humanoid form factors.
-   Experience working with and contributing to large-scale datasets (e.g., EgoScale, Open X-Embodiment) or specialized data collection approaches like Universal Manipulation Interface.
-   Experience with large-scale cluster training (Kubernetes, SLURM, distributed GPU training) and maintaining high-quality codebases.

  

The hourly pay range for this position is between $30-$70/ hour. Base pay will depend on multiple individualized factors including, but not limited to internal equity, job related knowledge, skills, education and experience. This range represents a good faith estimate of compensation at the time of posting.

## Other open roles at Boston Dynamics

- [Staff Program Manager, Strategy & Operations](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/staff-program-manager-strategy-operations-R3341) — Waltham, MA
- [Staff Hardware Test Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/staff-hardware-test-engineer-R3337) — Waltham, MA
- [Operations & Logistics Specialist](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/operations-logistics-specialist-R3339) — Savannah
- [Field Repair Technician - RMAC](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/field-repair-technician-rmac-R3333) — Savannah
- [Technical Program Manager Co-Op](https://zerogtalent.com/robotics-jobs/boston-dynamics/technical-program-manager-co-op-R3331) — Waltham Office (POST)

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*Source: [Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com), the job board for space, defense, AI, robotics and frontier-tech companies.*