2026 PhD Software Engineer Intern (Observability Data Platform), United States
We’re looking for PhD candidates to intern on the Observability Data Platform team during summer 2026 (12 weeks). You will be embedded in our engineering team and work closely with other specialists, software developers, and product managers. As a PhD intern, you will work on an exciting yet bold problem in depth and independently, under the supervision of an experienced engineer on that team.
About the Team
At Uber, we provide a centralized, reliable, and interactive observability platform that includes metrics, logging, and tracing. This platform empowers engineers with the tools needed for monitoring, troubleshooting, and performing root cause analysis at scale. Currently, the platform handles more than 5 billion metrics per second, 4 million tracing spans per second, and 30 million logs per second—and it's continuously evolving to support Uber's growth. In addition to addressing common challenges associated with large distributed systems, such as scalability, availability, performance, and efficiency, our team also leverages GenAI to provide aggregated insights, enhancing engineers' debugging experiences.
What You'll Do
- Drive exciting, ambitious, previously unsolved projects from end to end
- Thrive in ambiguous requirements, and explore with curiosity
- Make data driven decisions, with exceptional execution
- Be motivated to own projects and push them forward with independence
- Most importantly, have a passion to make Uber better for our customers
Basic Qualifications
- Currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program studying distributed systems, machine learning or a related engineering field
- Candidates must have at least one semester/quarter of their education left following the internship
Preferred Qualifications
- Knowledge of underlying technical foundations of distributed systems and/or GenAI fundamentals
- Experience in one or more object-oriented languages, including C++, Java, Python, or Go
- Experience with observability domain, eg OpenTelmetry will be a plus
- Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and business partners
- Experience in simplifying/converting business problems into technical problems
- Research mentality with a bias towards action to structure a project from idea to experimentation to prototype to implementation
- Experience presenting at industry recognized academic conferences and a good publishing record