Research Intern Jobs for OPT Students
Research Intern roles are among the most OPT-friendly positions available, with STEM OPT extensions applying broadly across science, engineering, and social research fields. Most positions run 10 to 40 hours per week, and many universities actively hire their own F-1 students, making on-campus placement straightforward during your OPT period.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
We’re looking for exceptional research interns who are passionate about AI, graphics, and building world-class products together with us.
ROLE
As a core member of the team of research scientists and machine learning engineers at Meshy, you will drive the development of our core 3D-native generative foundational model. In this role, you will join our foundational research to advance 3D AI, apply learnings from other fields of ML, and push the state of the art. You will also work towards long-term ambitious research goals, while identifying intermediate milestones.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Able to commit to a full-time internship for 12 weeks or longer
- Intend to join Meshy full-time after graduation (ideally graduating from 9/2026-9/2027, but later is also acceptable)
- Open to undergraduate, master's, or PhD students
- Strong in technical fundamentals, with a spirit of innovation and willingness to challenge yourself
WHO YOU ARE
You are a talented, hands-on researcher who thrives in a fast-paced environment, is self-directed, a team player, and knows how to get things done efficiently. You have a deep understanding of the transformer architecture, have strong python and tensor programming skills, have a vision for AI beyond linear sequences, and you believe in "the scaling law." You can translate high-level goals into concrete research and implementation steps, set an approach, and follow through. When it's time to explain your ideas, you bring clarity to complex technical issues. You are not afraid of confronting new ideas, and you are eager to share your knowledge with the team. You use these skills to create real-world benefits for our researchers, engineers, and millions of users, and you are excited to help advance our effort to push the state of the art of AI that understands and generates 3D worlds.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:
- Design, train, and refine large-scale 3D generative models from covering pre-training, post-training, and emerging paradigms in diffusion, flow matching, and multi-modal learning.
- Bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and product, deploy models in real products used by millions of creators, using human feedback and creative evaluation.
- Create novel model architectures to make 3D generation faster, higher-quality, and more controllable.
- Collaborate with infrastructure and systems teams to build scalable training, and data pipelines across GPU clusters and cloud environments.
- Bring engineering discipline into a fast-paced research environment: elegant code, reproducible experiments, and building software as a team.
- Share insights and breakthroughs through internal demos, open-source contributions, or technical reports that advance the field of 3D generative AI.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Strong engineering skills in Python and deep learning frameworks (preferably PyTorch); comfortable moving between research prototypes and production systems.
- Familiar with Transformers and modern generative AI models (Diffusion / flow matching, VAE, etc.).
- Curiosity and passion for multi-modal AI, and have an intuitive understanding of how models perceive, represent, and generate 3D worlds.
- Familiar with computer graphics, including rendering, geometry processing is a plus.
- Familiar with high performance training on large scale infrastructure (e.g., SLURM, Ray, k8s) is a plus.
- Contributions to popular open-source machine learning projects or publications in top-tier CV / ML conferences is a plus.
INTERNSHIP TRACKS
Star Intern
- Base salary: $70/hour
- Role: Collaborate with research engineers to drive progress in AI and graphics R&D
- Requirements: First-author publications in top-tier conferences such as SIGGRAPH, ICLR, etc.
Rising Intern
- Base pay: $50/hour
- Role: Collaborate with research engineers to drive progress in AI and graphics R&D
- Requirements: Hands-on experience in multimodal AI or computer graphics, either through research or engineering work
LOCATION
We are based in Sunnyvale, California.
ABOUT MESHY
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Meshy is the leading 3D generative AI company on a mission to Unleash 3D Creativity by transforming the content creation pipeline. Meshy makes it effortless for both professional artists and hobbyists to create unique 3D assets — turning text and images into stunning 3D models in just minutes. What once took weeks and cost $1,000 now takes just 2 minutes and $1.
Our world-class team of top experts in computer graphics, AI, and art includes alumni from MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, as well as veterans from Nvidia and Microsoft. Our talent spans the globe, with team members distributed across North America, Asia, and Oceania, fostering a diverse and innovative multi-regional culture focused on solving global 3D challenges. Meshy is trusted by top developers, backed by premiere venture capital firms like Sequoia and GGV, and has successfully raised $52 Million in funding.
Meshy is the market leader, recognized as the No.1 in popularity among 3D AI tools (according to 2024 A16Z Games) and No.1 in website traffic (according to SimilarWeb, with 3 Million monthly visits). The platform boasts over 5 Million users and has generated 40 Million models.
Founder and CEO Yuanming (Ethan) Hu earned his Ph.D. in graphics and AI from MIT, where he developed the acclaimed Taichi GPU programming language (27K stars on GitHub, used by 300+ institutes). His work is highly influential, including an honorable mention for the SIGGRAPH 2022 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award and over 2,700 research citations.
INTRODUCTION
We’re looking for exceptional research interns who are passionate about AI, graphics, and building world-class products together with us.
ROLE
As a core member of the team of research scientists and machine learning engineers at Meshy, you will drive the development of our core 3D-native generative foundational model. In this role, you will join our foundational research to advance 3D AI, apply learnings from other fields of ML, and push the state of the art. You will also work towards long-term ambitious research goals, while identifying intermediate milestones.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Able to commit to a full-time internship for 12 weeks or longer
- Intend to join Meshy full-time after graduation (ideally graduating from 9/2026-9/2027, but later is also acceptable)
- Open to undergraduate, master's, or PhD students
- Strong in technical fundamentals, with a spirit of innovation and willingness to challenge yourself
WHO YOU ARE
You are a talented, hands-on researcher who thrives in a fast-paced environment, is self-directed, a team player, and knows how to get things done efficiently. You have a deep understanding of the transformer architecture, have strong python and tensor programming skills, have a vision for AI beyond linear sequences, and you believe in "the scaling law." You can translate high-level goals into concrete research and implementation steps, set an approach, and follow through. When it's time to explain your ideas, you bring clarity to complex technical issues. You are not afraid of confronting new ideas, and you are eager to share your knowledge with the team. You use these skills to create real-world benefits for our researchers, engineers, and millions of users, and you are excited to help advance our effort to push the state of the art of AI that understands and generates 3D worlds.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:
- Design, train, and refine large-scale 3D generative models from covering pre-training, post-training, and emerging paradigms in diffusion, flow matching, and multi-modal learning.
- Bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and product, deploy models in real products used by millions of creators, using human feedback and creative evaluation.
- Create novel model architectures to make 3D generation faster, higher-quality, and more controllable.
- Collaborate with infrastructure and systems teams to build scalable training, and data pipelines across GPU clusters and cloud environments.
- Bring engineering discipline into a fast-paced research environment: elegant code, reproducible experiments, and building software as a team.
- Share insights and breakthroughs through internal demos, open-source contributions, or technical reports that advance the field of 3D generative AI.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Strong engineering skills in Python and deep learning frameworks (preferably PyTorch); comfortable moving between research prototypes and production systems.
- Familiar with Transformers and modern generative AI models (Diffusion / flow matching, VAE, etc.).
- Curiosity and passion for multi-modal AI, and have an intuitive understanding of how models perceive, represent, and generate 3D worlds.
- Familiar with computer graphics, including rendering, geometry processing is a plus.
- Familiar with high performance training on large scale infrastructure (e.g., SLURM, Ray, k8s) is a plus.
- Contributions to popular open-source machine learning projects or publications in top-tier CV / ML conferences is a plus.
INTERNSHIP TRACKS
Star Intern
- Base salary: $70/hour
- Role: Collaborate with research engineers to drive progress in AI and graphics R&D
- Requirements: First-author publications in top-tier conferences such as SIGGRAPH, ICLR, etc.
Rising Intern
- Base pay: $50/hour
- Role: Collaborate with research engineers to drive progress in AI and graphics R&D
- Requirements: Hands-on experience in multimodal AI or computer graphics, either through research or engineering work
LOCATION
We are based in Sunnyvale, California.
ABOUT MESHY
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Meshy is the leading 3D generative AI company on a mission to Unleash 3D Creativity by transforming the content creation pipeline. Meshy makes it effortless for both professional artists and hobbyists to create unique 3D assets — turning text and images into stunning 3D models in just minutes. What once took weeks and cost $1,000 now takes just 2 minutes and $1.
Our world-class team of top experts in computer graphics, AI, and art includes alumni from MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, as well as veterans from Nvidia and Microsoft. Our talent spans the globe, with team members distributed across North America, Asia, and Oceania, fostering a diverse and innovative multi-regional culture focused on solving global 3D challenges. Meshy is trusted by top developers, backed by premiere venture capital firms like Sequoia and GGV, and has successfully raised $52 Million in funding.
Meshy is the market leader, recognized as the No.1 in popularity among 3D AI tools (according to 2024 A16Z Games) and No.1 in website traffic (according to SimilarWeb, with 3 Million monthly visits). The platform boasts over 5 Million users and has generated 40 Million models.
Founder and CEO Yuanming (Ethan) Hu earned his Ph.D. in graphics and AI from MIT, where he developed the acclaimed Taichi GPU programming language (27K stars on GitHub, used by 300+ institutes). His work is highly influential, including an honorable mention for the SIGGRAPH 2022 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award and over 2,700 research citations.
How to Get Visa Sponsorship as a Research Intern
Confirm STEM OPT eligibility before applying
Research intern roles in biology, chemistry, computer science, and engineering typically qualify for the 24-month STEM OPT extension. Verify your degree is on the STEM Designated Degree Program List before targeting roles in those fields.
Target university and national lab employers first
Academic institutions and federal research labs like NIH and national universities frequently hire OPT students and have established processes for work authorization. These employers rarely treat OPT as a barrier compared to private-sector hiring managers.
Clarify your OPT authorization window upfront
Research internships often run 3 to 12 months. If your OPT card covers the full duration, state that clearly in your first message to the recruiter. Removing ambiguity early keeps your application moving forward.
Align your research focus to your degree field
OPT requires work directly related to your degree. A chemistry graduate working in a biology lab is generally fine. A computer science graduate doing unrelated administrative research is not. Confirm the connection is defensible before accepting an offer.
Get the job offer in writing before requesting a DSO update
Your Designated School Official needs a written offer letter to update your SEVIS record for post-completion OPT. Secure the written offer, confirm the start date, and then initiate the DSO process with enough lead time before your program end date.
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Get Access To All JobsFrequently Asked Questions
Can I work as a research intern on OPT without H-1B sponsorship?
Yes. OPT is your own work authorization, not employer sponsorship. You can work as a research intern for any employer willing to hire you without them filing any visa petition. Many research institutions, nonprofits, and universities hire OPT students specifically because the process is straightforward for them.
Does a research intern role qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
It depends on your degree field and the nature of the research. If your degree is on the STEM Designated Degree Program List and the internship involves work directly tied to that field, such as laboratory research, data analysis, or computational modeling, the role generally qualifies. Your DSO and the employer must confirm the connection meets USCIS standards.
How do I find research intern roles that are open to OPT students?
Migrate Mate is built specifically for F-1 OPT students and filters job listings by sponsorship and work authorization status. Searching there lets you focus on employers already familiar with OPT rather than spending time on applications where authorization is an immediate disqualifier.
Can I work part-time as a research intern on OPT?
Yes, but with an important limit. During post-completion OPT, you must work at least 20 hours per week to remain in valid status. Part-time research roles that meet or exceed that threshold are fully acceptable. Roles under 20 hours per week do not satisfy the OPT employment requirement and can put your status at risk.
What happens if my research internship ends before my OPT expires?
You have a cumulative 90-day unemployment allowance during standard OPT, which extends to 150 days if you have an approved STEM OPT extension. If your internship ends early, that unemployment clock starts. You can take on a second research role or a different qualifying job during that window without violating your status.
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