Contract Student Worker - Machine Learning Engineer - Data Mining & VLM (Full-time)
Foster City, CA
- Pay
$30/hour — pay source
We want to be transparent: this is not an internship. The Part-Time Student Worker Program is designed to complement your academic experience by providing meaningful, ongoing work alongside your studies. Rather than participating in a cohort-based program, you'll join a team directly and contribute to real projects with real impact. While the program does not include structured intern programming or a pathway to full-time employment, it offers valuable opportunities to learn, develop new skills, and gain hands-on experience in a professional environment. Compensation for this role is $30/hour. This is a contract position; employment will be through a vendor contracted with Zoox. The hourly rate is as posted, and benefits eligibility is determined by the vendor.
Read the full posting- Work setting
- Not stated
- Employment
Contract — employment source
Compensation for this role is $30/hour. This is a contract position; employment will be through a vendor contracted with Zoox. The hourly rate is as posted, and benefits eligibility is determined by the vendor. About Zoox
Employment type Contract
Employment type in the employer’s posting: Contract
From the employer’s posting
What you’ll work on
Full postingSupport Zoox's Rules of the Road (RotR) program, where a miner + LLM/VLM tooling method automatically mines and triages potential road-rule violation events from simulation and fleet data.
Develop and iterate data miners that locate potential road-rule violations
Build and refine VLM/LLM workflows that classify road-rule events
Curate golden datasets and measure triager precision and recall against human triage
Extend triagers from simulation to fleet and service data
Analyze triager error cases and turn findings into pipeline improvements
From the employer’s posting
Support Zoox's Rules of the Road (RotR) program, where a miner + LLM/VLM tooling method automatically mines and triages potential road-rule violation events from simulation and fleet data. The student will be helping create or improve the data miners that generate the candidate events, help develop and evaluate the VLM triagers — curating golden datasets, measuring precision/recall against expert triage, and extending automation to new regulations and data sources.
Develop and iterate data miners locating potential RotR Violations following SSO requirements
Develop and iterate on VLM/LLM workflows and pipelines for classifying RotR events
Curate golden datasets and evaluate triager precision/recall against human triage
Extend triagers from simulation to fleet/service data
Analyze error cases and translate findings into pipeline improvements
What you’ll bring
All qualificationsCore experience
- Strong Python / Pyspark / SQL skills
- Experience with Spark optimization and distributed data-processing systems.
- Experience evaluating multimodal or vision-language models.
- Understanding of supervised learning, model evaluation, and common sources of dataset bias and label noise.
- Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, mapping, or transportation-related datasets.
- Experience with prompt optimization, model fine-tuning, or human-in-the-loop ML systems.
Qualification wording
Strong Python / Pyspark / SQL skills
Experience with Spark optimization and distributed data-processing systems.
Experience evaluating multimodal or vision-language models.
Coursework in machine learning, computer vision, or NLP. Understanding of supervised learning, model evaluation, and common sources of dataset bias and label noise.
Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, mapping, or transportation-related datasets.
Experience with prompt optimization, model fine-tuning, or human-in-the-loop ML systems.
Tools in this posting
- Python
- Scala
- SQL
- Spark
- PySpark
Source — Tool mentions in context
- Extend triagers from simulation to fleet/service data - Strong Python / Pyspark / SQL skills - Coursework in machine learning, computer vision, or NLP. Understanding of supervised learning, model evaluation, and common sources of dataset bias and label noise.
Bonus Qualifications - Strong Scala skills. - Experience with Spark optimization and distributed data-processing systems.
- Strong Scala skills. - Experience with Spark optimization and distributed data-processing systems. - Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, mapping, or transportation-related datasets.
About Amazon
Zoox is an autonomous ridehailing company building the world's first purpose-built robotaxi — fully electric, bidirectional, with no steering wheel or driver's seat.
In the employer’s words · Read in context
Posting record
Report an error- Status in our records
- Live
- First seen by us
- Aug 11, 2026 · 79 days ago
- Recorded sightings
- 153
- Last seen by us
- Oct 30, 2026
- Employer says posted
- Aug 7, 2026
These dates show when we found the posting. Check the employer’s website to confirm it is still accepting applications.
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- Have your resume and examples of relevant work ready.
- Check the listed location, eligibility and core experience before starting.
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Job description
About Zoox
Zoox is an autonomous ridehailing company building the world's first purpose-built robotaxi — fully electric, bidirectional, with no steering wheel or driver's seat. Backed by Amazon and founded to make transportation safer, cleaner, and more accessible, Zoox designs its vehicles entirely around the rider. We're currently operating in Las Vegas and San Francisco, with Austin and Miami on the horizon, and testing underway across seven U.S. markets.
About Our Part-Time Student Worker Program
Zoox's part-time student worker program puts you at the center of one of the most ambitious challenges in transportation. You'll contribute to real projects, work alongside engineers and researchers pushing the boundaries of autonomous technology, and gain experience that goes well beyond the classroom. We're looking for students who bring strong academic foundations, curiosity that doesn't stop at coursework, and a drive to be part of something that matters.
Role Overview
Support Zoox's Rules of the Road (RotR) program, where a miner + LLM/VLM tooling method automatically mines and triages potential road-rule violation events from simulation and fleet data. The student will be helping create or improve the data miners that generate the candidate events, help develop and evaluate the VLM triagers — curating golden datasets, measuring precision/recall against expert triage, and extending automation to new regulations and data sources.
Responsibilities
- Develop and iterate data miners locating potential RotR Violations following SSO requirements
- Develop and iterate on VLM/LLM workflows and pipelines for classifying RotR events
- Curate golden datasets and evaluate triager precision/recall against human triage
Required Qualifications
- Extend triagers from simulation to fleet/service data
- Strong Python / Pyspark / SQL skills
- Coursework in machine learning, computer vision, or NLP. Understanding of supervised learning, model evaluation, and common sources of dataset bias and label noise.
- Analyze error cases and translate findings into pipeline improvements
- Hands-on experience building production LLM/VLM applications, including agentic workflows, RAG, tool calling, evaluation, and/or fine-tuning.
- Familiarity with software-engineering practices such as Git, unit testing, debugging, and code reviews.
Bonus Qualifications
- Strong Scala skills.
- Experience with Spark optimization and distributed data-processing systems.
- Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, mapping, or transportation-related datasets.
Program Requirements
- Experience evaluating multimodal or vision-language models.
- Currently enrolled in a B.S. or M.S. program in a relevant discipline.
- Experience with prompt optimization, model fine-tuning, or human-in-the-loop ML systems.
- Available to commit to a minimum three-month assignment.
- Able to commit a minimum of 40 hours per week.
- Able to work on-site at one of our office locations.
- Must adhere with Zoox confidentiality requirements, including refraining from using or sharing proprietary company information outside of Zoox, such as in academic research, theses, publications, or presentations.
Employment type
Contract
Source details
Source notes
Source excerptsSelected passages from the saved posting. Check the full description for conditions and exceptions.
- Pay
We want to be transparent: this is not an internship. The Part-Time Student Worker Program is designed to complement your academic experience by providing meaningful, ongoing work alongside your studies. Rather than participating in a cohort-based program, you'll join a team directly and contribute to real projects with real impact. While the program does not include structured intern programming or a pathway to full-time employment, it offers valuable opportunities to learn, develop new skills, and gain hands-on experience in a professional environment. Compensation for this role is $30/hour. This is a contract position; employment will be through a vendor contracted with Zoox. The hourly rate is as posted, and benefits eligibility is determined by the vendor.
- Location & working pattern
Foster City, CA
- Able to commit a minimum of 40 hours per week. - Able to work on-site at one of our office locations. - Must adhere with Zoox confidentiality requirements, including refraining from using or sharing proprietary company information outside of Zoox, such as in academic research, theses, publications, or presentations.
- Work authorization
No clear work-authorization passage found. Eligibility is unconfirmed.
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