[Hiring] Machine Learning PhD Intern @Instacart

Role Description

We are looking for interns to join Instacart’s Economics team. The ideal candidate for this role will bring a combination of experience in both economics and machine learning. We are in particular looking for current or recently graduated PhD students in economics or related fields like marketing, finance, or operations research. Candidates should bring some relevant research experience, typically in computationally intensive empirical topics, as well as some exposure to machine learning coursework and applications.

The Economics team at Instacart works on a range of interesting and challenging problems at the intersection of machine learning and economics, including:

• Aligning the incentives in our multi-sided marketplace
• Analyzing the impact of behavioral nudges on our customers’ and shoppers’ decisions
• Online advertising
• Uplift and long-term value modeling
• Logistics
• Marketplace optimization (consumers, shoppers, retailers)
• Inventory intelligence
• General causal inference

You will help design and build end-to-end machine learning solutions, working in small and cross-functional product teams with great opportunities for growth and ownership of projects. You will:

• Be an active member of an internal community, including economists, data scientists, operations research scientists, and machine learning engineers
• Develop high-impact solutions to support Instacart's ambitious growth plans
• Work closely with engineers, product managers, other teams, and both internal and external stakeholders
• Own a large part of the process from problem understanding to recommending a solution and testing it in controlled experiments
• Have the freedom to suggest and drive organization-wide initiatives

Qualifications

• Current or recently graduated PhD student in economics or a related field with a focus on data-intense problems
• A blend of economic theory, applied econometrics, and business acumen
• Expertise in causal inference with observational and experimental data
• Expertise in Python or R and fluency in data manipulation (SQL, Pandas) and machine learning (scikit-learn, XGBoost, Keras/Tensorflow) tools
• Self-motivation and a strong sense of ownership

Requirements

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role.

• CA, NY, CT, NJ: $50 — $50 USD
• WA: $48 — $48 USD
• OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI: $44 — $44 USD
• All other states: $42 — $42 USD

Benefits

Please read more about our benefits offerings here .