Preferred Networks (PFN) is looking for enthusiastic interns who can work with us in our Tokyo office this summer. Students who participated in the previous programs are also eligible to apply. We welcome students who want to help us develop new technologies, software, and services in a wide range of computer science areas including machine learning.  

 

Important notice:

Note that this program is only for students who already have visa eligibility to work as an intern this summer in Japan. We are not accepting applications from students who need support for obtaining the designated activity visa to work as an intern because the due date for processing such applications has already passed.

 

Guidelines for applicants

 

● Characteristics of PFN Internship

• Over the two-month period, PFN engineers will be assigned to work with each of you as a mentor. You will have opportunities to discuss and study your theme with specialists in various fields including deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics, bio-healthcare, reinforcement learning, and distributed processing.
• After the internship, you can make public your research result by writing a paper or making it OSS, to the extent possible.  

 

● Period

Start date：Between late July and early August depending on your schedule

End date：Friday, Sept.21, 2018

※You can choose to continue to work in the week of Sept. 24-28 under the same terms and conditions.

Note that this year’s internship will end on Sept. 21 in consideration of the fact that many schools start their fall semester in late September. If you need more time to finalize your research or want to spend more time with our staff, you can continue to work until the end of September under the same terms and conditions. We understand you may have school or family commitments during the internship which might range from lab activities to attending academic conferences, to returning home. We are very flexible about your need to take days of absence due to these reasons.

 

● Key Qualifications

PFN is seeking highly motivated and skillful individuals who can develop applications, tools, etc. on your own. Having knowledge or development experience in the themes listed below is a plus but not a must. Minimum requirements are:

• Currently enrolled in high school, technical college, university, or graduate school. Negotiable for those attending other higher educational institution
• Fluency in Japanese or English
• Strong communication skills
• Prior experience in programming (any language)
• Willingness to come to work in our Tokyo office on weekdays

Do not hesitate to apply even if you don’t have prior experience in full-scale development.

 

【Important notes before you apply】

• We are not accepting applications from students who need support for obtaining the designated activity visa to work as an intern because the due date for processing such applications has already passed.
• You need to let us know in advance for any administrative work required for receiving academic credit from your school. Please note that depending on the complexity of the work, PFN may not be able to accommodate your request.

 

● Place of work

PFN Tokyo Office

Otemachi Bldg. 2F, 1-6-1, Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan 100-0004

 

● Basic working conditions and benefits

• Salaries：2,500JPY an hour for a technical college, university, graduate school students. 2,000JPY an hour for high school students
• Work hours：Eight work hours in principle. Five days a week excluding Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays.  
• Commuting fee support：PFN will pay for your daily commute to and from office in an approved route.
• Travel cost：For students traveling a long distance by plain or Shinkansen bullet train to participate in the internship, PFN will support a round trip to relocate to the Tokyo area.
• Accommodation support：For students coming from distant parts who would take roughly 60 minutes or longer to commute, PFN will provide a housing allowance of 5,000JPY a day covering the entire period of your internship. You need to arrange a place to stay by yourself. Reasonable weekly rental apartments are available near PFN office ranging from 100,000 to 150,000 JPY a month. Please note that the accommodation allowance is taxable.

 

● How to Apply

Go to： Application form

※ Click the above form to apply. To access the application form, you will need to log in with a Google account.

Deadline：By 23:59 Monday, April 30, 2018, Japan time

For inquiries：Send us an email at intern2018@preferred.jp

 

※About your portfolio

Summarize your skills and qualifications freely in a A4 paper to pitch yourself and highlight and showcase some of your best work such as software you have developed, a list of published papers, awards or prizes you have received, programming contests you have participated in, your blog, twitter account, and other social media sites.

 

● Themes

Let us know which of the following areas of study you would like to work on during the internship. We will decide your theme after speaking with you. You must choose your 1st and 2nd preferences in the application form. If you have more than two areas of interest, select the 3rd preference, which is optional.

1. Theoretical study of Machine learning/deep learning
2. Computer vision
3. Deep reinforcement learning
4. Robotics
5. Bio-healthcare
6. HPC and distributed data management for distributed deep learning/deep learning
7. Natural language processing
8. Speech processing
9. VR／AR
10. Human computer interaction, human machine interaction
11. Applications of deep learning to animation, creator support
12. Development of Chainer
13. Development of area-specific libraries on Chainer
14. R&D of machine learning algorithms such as anomaly detection
15. Information visualization tool and front-end development for machine learning
16. Machine learning research support, cluster management, experiment management system development
17. Development of dedicated accelerator/processor for deep learning
18. Development of compiler/optimizer for deep learning
19. Development of IoT/Edge Heavy Computing platform
20. Other
21. （New) R&D of automatic tuning methods for deep learning
22. （New) Video analytics (sports, etc…)

 

● Selection process

▼First screening

After sending the application by April 30, you will receive two tests: (1) Online self-interview (recording) (2) Coding test. Deadline for completing these tests is  May 14 (subject to change).

▼Interview

An interview will be scheduled sometime during the two weeks starting from June 5. For students living in distant areas, PFN will arrange a video chat such as Skype.

▼Letter of acceptance (by late June)