2026 PhD Residency - LLMs for Chemistry and Material Science, Early Stage Project

How You Will Make 10x Impact

• Collaborate within a confidential X Project team to apply LLMs, stochastic optimization, and agentic workflows to problems involving complex chemical systems.
• Translate project challenges into actionable research plans, investigating and integrating findings into project milestones.
• Develop and deploy generative AI models for chemistry and materials science including but not limited to finetuning and post-training.
• Develop AI evaluation metrics for chemistry and materials science tasks.
• Design systems for in silico assessment of novel molecules and materials.
• Develop and implement novel AI-driven active learning algorithms to accelerate scientific discovery.
• Work in a collaborative software development and AI research environment to implement solutions with team members.
• Engage with the X resident community during the program.
  
  

This project aims to push the limits of science and modeling as we know them and to prove how ML can radically accelerate our understanding of the world

• Location: X's headquarters in Mountain View, CA
• Start Date(s): Year-round rolling basis
• Duration: a flexible 4 mo. to 1 year program based on project team needs and your availability
  
  

Throughout Your AI Residency You Can Expect

• To be embedded into one of our confidential or public X projects
• To get paid competitively and receive benefits
• To be a part of a lively community of AI and ML Residents
• To attend tech-talks with AI leaders from across X
  
  

What You Should Have

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program in Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science, or a closely related field.
• Strong python programming skills.
• Actively performing research at the interface of chemistry/materials science and AI.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively present complex technical concepts and findings.
  
  

It’d Be Great If You Also Had These

• Open-source projects that demonstrate relevant skills and/or publications in relevant conferences and journals.
• Hands-on experience with agentic frameworks, such as Langgraph, Autogen, CrewAI.
• Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), supervised fine tuning, and/or reinforcement learning (RLHF, DPO, GRPO, etc).
• Familiarity with black-box or gradient-free optimization methods (e.g., genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization) for scientific discovery.
• Background or coursework in chemistry, electrochemistry, solid-state physics, or materials science.
  
  

Additional Public Information

https://www.wired.com/video/watch/astro-teller-captain-of-moonshots-at-x-speaks-at-wired25

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2019-10-10/alphabet-x-s-astro-teller-on-bloomberg-studio-1-0-video

The US base salary range for this position is $109,000 - $150,000 benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include benefits.