PhD Student Intern - AI Research

We help the world run betterAt SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

We help the world run better At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we will bring out the best in you. We are builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what is next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You will find a place where you can be yourself, prioritise your wellbeing, and truly belong. What is in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

What you’ll do

• As a PhD Intern you will work with a team of experienced researchers and applied scientists taking on challenges informed by scaling AI methods across and beyond the broad portfolio of SAP’s business software.
• Conduct state-of-the-art research on AI agent improvement, including reinforcement learning approaches that use structured feedback from recurring failures to enable continuous learning and adaptation across diverse enterprise environments.
• Learn about exciting research and applications within and outside your expertise, contributing to SAP product development.
• Publish research results in top-tier conferences at the end of the internship and contribute to SAP product development.

What you bring

• PhD student (second year or beyond) with a first-author publication or preprint.
• Specialisation in Reinforcement Learning and LLM agent research.
• Excellent understanding of deep learning, transformer architectures, optimization methods, supervised fine-tuning, and reinforcement learning approaches.
• A strong publication record in top-tier ML/NLP conferences or journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CVPR) are preferred.
• Strong background in machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, or reinforcement learning.
• Strong algorithmic problem-solving skills.
• Proficient in PyTorch and Python with a good understanding of statistical analysis and shell programming.

The duration of the internship is 6 months and should take place in 2026.

Meet your team SAP's AI organization is dedicated to seamlessly infusing AI into all enterprise applications, enabling customers, partners, and developers to enhance business processes and generate remarkable business value. Leveraging the cutting-edge developments in AI research along with SAP’s unparalleled enterprise data assets offers a distinctive opportunity to explore an uncharted domain within AI research. As a vital part of this organization, our team is dedicated to pioneering an end-to-end framework for agent evaluation and improvement across a wide range of business processes.

Bring out your bestSAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best. We win with inclusionSAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements.Successful candidates might be required to undergo a background verification with an external vendor.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process.

Please note that any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.Requisition ID: 450850 | Work Area: Software-Design and Development | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Student | Employment Type: Limited Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid