Data Science Intern (General Catalyst & Sheryl Sandberg Backed)

Starting date: As soon as possible (Okt/Nov 2024)

Please view our Notion Page for more information and other job postings.

About Dryft

🔥 We are an early stage startup in San Francisco, backed by General Catalyst and Neo, with support from Angels and mentors like Sheryl Sandberg (former COO Facebook), Claire Hughes Johnson (former COO of Stripe), manufacturing/supply chain experts and technical leaders from Amazon, or OpenAI.

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With Dryft, we are on a quest to run entire industrial operations with AI. We do that by building a new category of agentic software that makes autonomous operational decisions (e.g. inventory planning, procurement, quoting, pricing), replacing legacy systems and enabling industrial companies to move faster—whether it’s building cars or responding to health crises.

Our first product tackles the massive 400bn USD/year inventory carrying cost problem of US manufacturers & wholesalers. We are already working with multiple world-leading machine manufacturers (e.g. $500M revenue) on this.

About You

As a Data Science Intern, you’ll help power Dryft’s decision intelligence engine. Think of yourself as the mastermind in a high performance sports team.

Your highest priority is to work on algorithmic prototypes. This includes prototyping pieces of the core logic for our decision model and using GenAI to process unstructured data. You collaborate closely with our CTO to deliver fast evolutions of these prototypes.

You are right for this role if you consider yourself a strong:

• Builder: You ship code, fast. This also shows in your experience.
• Problem-solver: You can break down complex problems very quickly and find new ways to tackle challenges at the frontier of technology.
• Pragmatic Executer: You don’t have the urge to make everything perfect, but instead focus on getting things done, even if that means using a hack.

Responsibilities

• 🎨 AI Algorithm Development: Research, design, build, deploy, and validate new and existing optimization algorithms and predictive analytics in supply chain that will drive our customers’ growth
• 🛣️ Data Processing: Implement data processing crucial to our core logic (we are moving a lot of data!)
• 🛠 Analysis: Analyse data that depicts the use cases to get a full picture of the context and impact the algorithmic prototypes can have. Utilize statistical and visualization tools to summarize and communicate findings effectively.

Qualifications

• Data Science Excellence:
  • Minimum 3 years of practical experience in data science outside of classrooms (i.e. through internships, personal projects, hackathons,etc.)
  • Strong understanding of both deterministic and machine learning algorithms
  • Proficiency in working with relational data
  • Experience in writing, debugging, and optimizing model prototypes for both deterministic and stochastic approaches
  • Solid experience with data processing and cleaning
• Frameworks:
  • Advanced Python Skills, specifically knowledge in Pandas, SQL, Pytorch
• Dev Best Practices
  • Familiarity with collaborative workflows, including Git and code reviews
• GenAI Expertise:
  • Proficiency with Vector Databases and chaining LLMs is a plus

What we offer

High upside & ownership

We have paying customers and just raised our seed from leading investors like General Catalyst, Neo, Claire Hughes Johnson (former COO of Stripe), and Sheryl Sandberg. With this early role, you’ll influence our product substantially and can be part of something big, from day one.

The learning experience of your life

We have a strong feedback culture (daily!) and push each other to do the best work of our lives. We expect you to put up you best work and will push you even beyond that. We care about your learning and we'll make sure that from day one you can work on something you care about improving.

Access to the best tech mentors and investors

We are mentored by some of the most impressive technical talent (e.g. leaders from OpenAI, Cognition, Apple, etc.)

A collaborative, high energy team culture

We are in this together and care about having fun while working hard.
We have an extremely transparent culture which allows you to be part of the core team and major decisions in the company. You'll have all our trust. You work with us, not for us.

Visa and relocation support

We are open to sponsor visa and help you relocate to SF/Bay Area.

Dates, Location & Compensation

• Starting date: As soon as possible
• Minimum Duration: 3 months, ideally 6 months or more
• Long term: Ability to turn into full-time contract upon successful internship completion
• Compensation is competitive and aligned with your experience and location
• Location: Bay Area (with potential remote option)

Our Team

Our experience is deeply rooted at the intersection of Manufacturing & AI.

Our CEO, Anna-Julia Storch (MS Data Science @Stanford) has a track record of building multiple successful startup projects from the ground up (e.g., 2nd employee at Kyte) and closing multi-million dollar contracts with industrial firms. Our CTO, Leonie Freisinger(MS ML & Robotics @ TUM), co-developed a forecasting framework with >3 million downloads at Stanford and has been building software for >8 years, incl. leading a team of >100 students and researchers as the president of TUM.ai. We have experience across a total of 15 companies incl. industrials like Siemens, Amazon, and Porsche, as well as mid-market leaders like Viessmann and Optima.

Our name, Dryft, is inspired by our love for speed. AJ was an internationally competitive skier and Leonie developed race cars like the Porsche Taycan. Dryft reminds us every day to bring that speed to the world of industrials.

Who we are looking for

We are building a world-class team. We learned first-hand what high performing (sports) teams look like and we’re applying those same principles to our hiring process. As such, we are looking for outliers: crazy thinkers with entrepreneurial tendencies and an inherent drive to get sh*t done.

You fit into our team if you are:

• Entrepreneurial: You dive head-first into challenges and are comfortable in a fast-paced environment with changing needs and high responsibility.
• Relentlessly Ambitious: You want to win and you have a vision for your future. We help you get there by running an extreme feedback culture with direct, daily feedback session so we can all push each other to deliver the best work of our lives.
• A Go Getter: You make impossible challenges possible and don’t shy away from being creative, and scrappy in finding ways to get there. Whether that means rallying your friends to ship code overnight or sleeping in a car in front of a factory (been there, done that ;) ).
• An Outcast: You come from a non-traditional background, like to challenge the status quo and have a desire to prove something to the world. We believe determination wins and we want you on board to show the world.
• A Builder: You like to bring your ideas to life and have a bias for action, even if that means learning a new skill to move forward. You prefer to prototype solutions instead of making lists and thinking “strategy”.