Machine Learning Engineering Intern (PhD)

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way.

The community you will join:

Airbnb is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer Intern for our 2026 Summer Intern Program

Machine Learning at Airbnb is a diverse and dynamic field, with teams working on various aspects of the ML landscape. We are using ML to tackle various challenges in search ranking, payments, fraud prevention, discrimination, and growth all while maintaining a beautiful experience. We love to contribute to the community, by publishing blog posts and scientific papers at ML Conferences. Some of our publications can be found on Medium: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/tagged/machine-learning

Search Relevance and Personalization team is responsible for building search ranking algorithms and the personalization platform that serves multiple product surfaces. The team consists of 30+ ML Engineers working on different aspects of relevance and personalization. The team is very much experimentation oriented and runs frequent A/B tests to improve the relevance of the product surfaces they power. The team is also very much applied research oriented and regularly publishes work at KDD, CIKM and WSDM Conferences.

The difference you will make:

As an intern, you’ll be integrated into a team where you’ll drive a project from end-to-end that aligns with your technical interest and goals. 

The intern project will revolve around exploring how new advancements in AI agents can be applied to Airbnb search and discovery experience.

The intern experience:

As an intern, you’ll be integrated into a team where you’ll contribute to challenging projects. Your manager, team, and our incredible employee community will strive to be superhosts to you during the summer. We provide the support, mentorship, fun, and real world experience needed to accelerate your learning and make a real impact on our product, as Airbnb revolutionizes connection, belonging, and travel. You can expect to:

• Own and drive a capstone project from beginning to end
• Collaborate with multiple team members to achieve project milestones
• Communicate with stakeholders across different teams to provide project updates
• Seek and provide feedback throughout the internship
• Actively participate in and contribute to the Engineering org and broader Airbnb community

Your expertise:

This internship opportunity is for Doctorate students with at least 1 semester of school remaining after the internship (expected graduation after December 2026).

• Studying Computer Science or a related field
• Knowledge of AI, especially large language model (LLM) fundamentals including fine tuning, data synthesis, reinforcement learning, etc.
• Expertise of building large scale ReAct style AI agents. 
• Proficient in Python and other open source LLM libraries like Huggingface
• Publications in top Machine Learning and NLP conferences are a big plus.
• Leadership position, AI community involvement, and or teaching/mentoring experience is a plus!
• Work authorization for employment in the United States is required

Your Location:

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list. If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from. 

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.

How we’ll take care of you:

Our job titles may span more than one career or degree level. This role may also be eligible for benefits and Employee Travel Credits. 

Currency: USD   Pay Rate: $4,500.00 biweekly

How we’ll take care of you:

Our job titles may span more than one career or degree level. This role may also be eligible for benefits and Employee Travel Credits. 

Pay Range

$20—$50 USD