AI Research PhD Intern, 2026 Summer Australia

Working at Atlassian
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As a distributed-first company, all interviews are conducted virtually. We hire in any country where we have a legal entity. Learn how we work at go.atlassian.com/distributed .
This role is located in the Australian Eastern Standard (AEST) time zone. You must be willing and able to work out of this time zone to qualify.
Applications will be accepted from Australian and New Zealand Citizens, Australian Permanent Residents, and those holding the appropriate student visas, which allow them full working rights in Australia after graduation.
Your Future Team
Join our cutting-edge Machine Learning Research team at Atlassian as a PhD Research Intern, where you'll have the opportunity to work on advanced machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly focusing on areas such as Large language models (LLMs), Generative AI, Conversational Agents, and AI Optimization. You'll be part of a team that pioneers innovations to address complex real-world problems, developing state-of-the-art AI solutions that will ultimately drive impact for Enterprises.
As a PhD intern, you will gain hands-on experience in both foundational research and practical applications, contributing to the training, evaluation and optimized inferencing of AI models that could be used by millions of customers. You will collaborate closely with experienced researchers and engineers to push the boundaries of what's possible with AI, while gaining invaluable insights into industrial research and development.
This internship is designed for individuals passionate about exploring new frontiers in AI and machine learning research. You'll work in a stimulating environment with some of the brightest minds in the field, gaining exposure to both academic and applied research challenges. We are committed to providing a supportive and inclusive work environment where interns are empowered to contribute significantly to ongoing research that improves teamwork and collaboration in an Enterprise.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Research Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers to design, implement, and evaluate experiments that advance the performance, efficiency, and scalability of modern ML and LLM systems for our AI products.
• Curate, preprocess, and manage large-scale datasets for training and evaluation, ensuring data quality, diversity, and reproducibility across experiments.
• Conduct continued training, fine-tuning, and alignment of large language models for specialized applications such as conversational AI, summarization, generative search, and multimodal agents.
• Evaluate cutting-edge ML algorithms through rigorous experimentation and provide detailed analyses highlighting performance insights, failure modes, and opportunities for improvement.
• Contribute to publications and presentations at internal workshops or top-tier academic venues, helping to drive innovation in Enterprise AI and large-scale ML systems.

Minimum Qualifications
This role is located in the Australian Eastern Standard (AEST) time zone. You must be willing and able to work out of this time zone to qualify.
Applications will be accepted from Australian and New Zealand Citizens, Australian Permanent Residents and International Students.

• Completed Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science or a related field at any stage of your doctoral studies. We welcome applications from candidates in all years of their PhD program, including those in the early stages.
• Strong foundation in AI/ML, LLMs, modelling and/or optimisation techniques.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exhibit a solid grasp of algorithms and data structures.
• Demonstrate proficiency in Python programming and ability to write clean, efficient, and well-documented code.
• Experience working with large-scale datasets, including data preprocessing, augmentation, and scaling techniques.
• Has expertise in managing data using Python libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, in addition to leveraging models from Hugging Face and has practical knowledge of applied machine learning and deep learning frameworks, like PyTorch.
• Demonstrated exposure to natural language processing (NLP) and Computer Vision (CV)
• Familiarity with state-of-the-art research in machine learning and AI, as evidenced by relevant coursework, publications, or projects.
• Having publications in top-tier AI conferences or journals will be considered an asset or a plus. Include a publications list (if applicable) to help us assess depth of research and systematic thinking.
• Strong communication skills to articulate complex ideas and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams.

Benefits & Perks
Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more. To learn more, visit Atlassian Internships: Students and New Grads | Atlassian ..
About Atlassian
At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together.
We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.
To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh .