Machine Learning PhD Intern, Economics

Instacart

4h • Hybrid

About The Position

Instacart is seeking interns to join its Economics team, focusing on the intersection of machine learning and economics. The ideal candidate will be a current or recently graduated PhD student in economics or related fields such as marketing, finance, or operations research, with experience in computationally intensive empirical research and exposure to machine learning. The Economics team addresses challenging problems including online advertising, uplift and long-term value modeling, logistics, marketplace optimization, inventory intelligence, and causal inference. In this role, interns will design and build end-to-end machine learning solutions within small, cross-functional product teams. They will contribute to an internal community of economists, data scientists, operations research scientists, and machine learning engineers, sharing knowledge and best practices. Interns are expected to develop high-impact solutions to support Instacart's growth, working closely with engineers, product managers, and various stakeholders from problem understanding to solution recommendation and experimental testing. There is also an opportunity to suggest and drive organization-wide initiatives.

Requirements

• Current or recently graduated PhD student in economics or a related field with focus on data-intense problems
• A blend of economic theory, applied econometrics, and business acumen that let you jump into a fast-paced environment and contribute from day one
• 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

Responsibilities

• Help design and build end-to-end machine learning solutions
• Work in small and cross-functional product teams, with opportunities for growth and ownership of projects
• Be an active member of an internal community, including economists, data scientists, operations research scientists and machine learning engineers, sharing learnings, best practices and research across many domains
• 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, owning 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

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Intern
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees