Research Scientist Intern (PhD)

WHO WE ARE Foundation models have transformed text and images, but structured data - the largest and most consequential data modality in the world - has remained untouched. Tables power every clinical trial, every financial model, every scientific experiment, every business decision. No one has built a foundation model that truly understands them. Until now. What LLMs did for language, we're doing for tables. Momentum: We pioneered tabular foundation models and are now the world-leading organization in structured data ML. Our TabPFN v2 model was published in Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08328-6 and set a new state-of-the-art for tabular machine learning. Since its release, we've scaled model capabilities more than 20x, reached 3M+ downloads, 6,000+ GitHub stars, and are seeing accelerating adoption across research and industry - from detecting lung disease with Oxford Cancer Analytics https://www.oxcan.org/news/prior-labs-and-oxford-cancer-analytics-partner-to-advance-liquid-biopsy-and-clinical-decision-making-in-lung-disease to preventing train failures with Hitachi https://siliconangle.com/2025/12/01/prior-labs-debuts-tabular-ai-foundation-model-scales-10-million-rows/ to improving clinical trial decisions with BostonGene https://priorlabs.ai/case-studies/boston-gene. The hardest work is in front of us. We're scaling tabular foundation models to handle millions of rows, thousands of features, real-time inference, and entirely new data modalities - while building the infrastructure to deploy them in production across some of the most demanding industries on earth. These are open problems no one else is working on at this level. Our team: We’re a small, highly selective team https://priorlabs.ai/about of 20+ engineers and researchers, selected from over 5,000 applicants, with backgrounds spanning Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, G-Research, Jane Street, Goldman Sachs, and CERN, led by Frank Hutter https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-hutter-9190b24b/, Noah Hollmann https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-hollmann-668b9010b/ and Sauraj Gambhir https://www.linkedin.com/in/sauraj-g/ and advised by world-leading AI researchers such as Bernhard Schölkopf and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun. We ship fast, create top-tier research, and hold each other to an extremely high bar. What’s Next: In 2025, we raised €9m pre-seed led by Balderton Capital, backed by leaders from Hugging Face, DeepMind, and Black Forest Labs. The next modality shift in AI is happening - and we're hiring the team that makes it. CORE AREAS OF IMPACT You'll be among the first scientists collaborating and working an entirely new class of AI models, not just incremental improvements. As an early-stage startup working on foundation models for tabular data, we have countless exciting research ideas and problems to explore - you're sure to find challenges that match your interests and expertise. We are working on problems such as: - Scaling our transformer architectures from 10K to 1M+ samples while maintaining performance - Building multimodal models that combine text and tabular understanding on proprietary data - Developing specialized architectures for time series, forecasting, and anomaly detection - Creating efficient inference methods for production deployment - Researching causal understanding in foundation models - Designing novel approaches for handling multiple related tables WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Currently pursuing or holding a PhD in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field (we will also consider exceptional Master's students) - Deep experience with ML frameworks, especially PyTorch and scikit-learn - Strong engineering fundamentals with excellent Python expertise - Experience in data-science and working with tabular data or time series - Publications at top-tier venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) or significant open-source contributions BENEFITS - Strong mentorship and professional development opportunities - Work with state-of-the-art ML architecture, substantial compute resources, and a world-class team - Comprehensive benefits including healthcare, transportation, and fitness LOCATION - Offices in Freiburg, Germany - a university city at the edge of the Black Forest, Switzerland and France, and Berlin—a global tech hub and one of Europe’s most dynamic cities OUR COMMITMENTS - We believe the best products and teams come from a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. That’s why we welcome applications from people of all identities and walks of life, especially anyone who’s ever felt discouraged by "not checking every box." - We’re committed to creating a safe, inclusive environment and providing equal opportunities regardless of gender, sexual orientation, origin, disabilities, or any other traits that make you who you are.