Data Science Intern, Platform (PhD)

The community you will join:

Airbnb is seeking a (PhD) Data Science Intern to join the Trust Platform team for our 2025 Summer Intern Program from June 2, 2025 - August 22, 2025.

The Data Science organization aims to be a business multiplier by solving complex and technical questions that underlie the foundations of Airbnb’s business through a mix of data research, modeling, and empirical methods.

Trust Data Science at Airbnb aims to innovate and apply deep scientific approaches to solve critical problems, making the platform safer and more trustworthy for millions of users. The team is responsible for detecting, blocking, and removing inauthentic, harmful, or inappropriate content on Airbnb and building mitigation products to proactively or retroactively remove this content and its creators.

The difference you will make:

During the internship, you’ll be integrated into the Trust Image Authenticity working group at Airbnb. The primary goal of this role is to enhance our understanding of generative AI (GenAI) images on our platform to protect our identity and listing verification systems from inauthentic submissions. As part of a critical initiative to safeguard guest and host experiences, you will play a key role in helping us combat the challenges posed by advanced GenAI techniques that could potentially undermine the integrity of our platform.

Key responsibilities includes:

• Conducting literature reviews to identify new detection methods for GenAI-generated images
• Investigating innovative approaches to create training and evaluation datasets for image authenticity
• Implementing pretrained detection models on internal datasets and analyze their performance
• Training and fine-tuning detection models using in-house datasets, measuring effectiveness in real-time scenarios

This internship offers a unique opportunity to work on a cutting-edge problem, leveraging your knowledge of GenAI methods. You will have the chance to participate in exploratory research that directly impacts our platform's security and integrity, while also gaining valuable experience in the field.

A typical day:

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:

• 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 Data Science org and broader Airbnb community

Your expertise:

This opportunity is for full-time Doctorate students enrolled at a nationally-accredited university in the United States graduating between December 2025 - June 2026 with the following background:

• Studying computer science, computer engineering, data science, or an equivalent technical field
• Knowledge of cutting edge GenAI techniques in the image domain
• Ability to read and summarize papers from the literature
• Solid Python coding skills
• Familiarity with at least one DNN framework (PyTorch or Tensorflow)
• Demonstrated interest in high growth, technology, and/or hospitality companies
• Work authorization for employment in the United States is required (CPT/OPT with 2-year STEM extension is accepted)

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: [email protected]. 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: $4500 biweekly