Applied Research Intern, Proactive Intelligence & Customer World Models

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Block

10,001+ employeesFounded 2009Oakland, CaliforniaFinancial Services
Actively hiringPaidRemote-friendlyFinancial Services
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Best applied by Dec 28

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About the role#

This role is for graduate students interested in building the foundations of proactive intelligence. You will own a research problem from start to finish. This includes framing the question, running experiments, and publishing your findings. When successful, you will ship your work into production systems used by millions of customers and sellers. You will work at the intersection of representation learning, foundation models, reinforcement learning, and agentic systems.

What you'll do#

  • Build rich representations of customers using event streams, financial activity, and behavioral data.
  • Develop systems that anticipate customer needs and initiate helpful actions.
  • Build agents that reason over customer world models and take actions.
  • Create methods for intelligence to improve continuously from real-world outcomes.
  • Build evaluation frameworks that predict real-world performance, trust, and customer value.

What you'll need#

  • Current enrollment in an MS or PhD program in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field, with plans to return to your program after the co-op.
  • Strong foundations in modern machine learning, including deep learning, optimization, and representation learning.
  • Experience conducting independent research and translating ideas into working systems.
  • Fluency in Python and experience with frameworks like PyTorch or JAX.
  • Evidence of research excellence through publications, open-source contributions, or technical leadership.
  • Preferred: Experience with large language models, agentic systems, reinforcement learning, or representation learning for temporal or graph data.
  • Preferred: Familiarity with large-scale training and production ML systems.

Location & details#

  • This is a remote role.
  • The position is a full-time, paid 8-month co-op starting in September 2026.
  • This role does not offer sponsorship.

About Block

Block is a financial services company founded in 2009. It operates as a public company with a global presence. The organization employs over 10,000 people across various corporate functions including finance, engineering, and information security. Its headquarters are located in Oakland, California.

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