Industrial PhD in AI for Autonomous Driving (WASP)

Work on AI that has to work

Most AI research is evaluated on benchmarks. Few systems are built to operate under real-world constraints.

Very little is developed in environments where real-world data, system constraints, and safety all matter at once.

That’s where we work.

At Zenseact, a Volvo Car Group company, we build AI for autonomous driving and road safety. Our research spans machine learning, perception, planning and safety, with publications at conferences like CVPR, ICCV, ICML and CoRL.

We also contribute to the field through research and datasets — including the Zenseact Open Dataset, a large-scale multimodal dataset built to support real-world autonomous driving research.

See our research here: https://research.zenseact.com/

Why this role

You’ll do research. Proper research.

But you’ll also get the opportunity to:

• Work with large-scale, real-world driving data

• Understand how models behave outside controlled environments

• Explore how system and safety constraints shape AI

This combination changes both the questions you ask — and how you evaluate answers.

The research

Federated Reinforcement and Imitation Learning for Autonomous Driving

Autonomous vehicles generate massive amounts of experience, but most learning still happens locally.

So the question is:

How do we enable learning across fleets without sharing raw data? How do we combine imitation learning (stable) with reinforcement learning (adaptive) in distributed systems?

What you’ll work on

• Federated architectures for collaborative policy learning

• Hybrid RL/IL methods balancing safety and performance

• Handling non-IID data from diverse driving environments

• Evaluation on large-scale real-world datasets

  You’ll join a research team working across machine learning, perception, planning and safety for autonomous driving.

  “We work on problems that don’t have clean boundaries. You’re not just optimizing a model — you’re understanding how it behaves in a larger system.” — Hiring leader Gabriel Campos

The setup

• 4-year industrial PhD within WASP (Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program)

• Collaboration with Uppsala University

• Based in Gothenburg, Sweden

• Permanent employment (PhD + continued role after graduation)

You’ll work closely with researchers publishing in top venues, and be part of a small cohort of industrial PhD students.

What we’re looking for

• M.Sc. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics or similar

• Experience working on open-ended problems (thesis, research, projects)

• Strong fundamentals in machine learning / mathematics

• Ability to reason about complex systems

• Curiosity and willingness to learn

We’ve hired people from physics, robotics, mathematics and beyond.

What you’ll get

• Work on a hard, relevant AI problem

• Publish at top conferences (CVPR, ICCV, ICML, CoRL)

• Access to large-scale multimodal driving data and compute

• Exposure to real-world constraints and systems

• A strong network across academia and industry

Why it matters

Autonomous driving is one of the most complex applications of AI today.

If we get this right, we don’t just improve models — we improve how systems learn, scale, and operate safely in the real world.

Apply

Please include:

• CV

• Transcripts

• Master’s thesis (or expected completion date)

• Optional: short motivation

  Gothenburg, Sweden Start: ASAP

Final note

The best researchers don’t wait for perfect conditions.

If this problem sounds interesting — apply now!

This role may have access to sensitive information, trade secrets, and confidential data. As part of the recruitment process, the selected candidate might undergo a background check.

FAQ

Q: Is this a temporary or permanent employment contract?

A: We are offering a permanent employment contract. For the upcoming 4 years, you will be focusing on your research project and PhD degree. After your graduation, you will join one of our product teams and leverage your know how to drive our technological advancements.

Q: I don't have publications yet. Can I still apply?

A: Absolutely. We care about research potential – strong thesis work, technical depth in projects, or demonstrated ability to tackle hard problems.

Q: Do I need automotive experience?

A: No. We've hired researchers from graphics, NLP, robotics, and theoretical ML. Domain knowledge helps, but learning ability matters more.

Q: Is funding guaranteed?

A: Yes. This project is part of the WASP industrial program. You can read more here: https://wasp-sweden.org/

Q: Is the academic partner defined?

A: Yes. This project will be driven with Uppsala University, and you will need to follow they doctoral education program.

**More about Zenseact

**

Our software makes a difference. Using AI-based technology to create the ultimate driver support, we’re fighting to end car accidents and make roads safe for everyone. Every year, around 1,4 million people die in traffic while approximately 50 million people get injured. Many get disabled as a result of their injury. We can do better.

One purpose, one product. We’re a software company dedicated to revolutionizing car safety. By designing the complete software stack for autonomous driving and advanced driver-assistance systems, we’re fighting to end car accidents and make roads safe for everyone. Zenseact was founded by Volvo Cars, and the teams are based in Gothenburg and Lund, Sweden and Munich in Germany. When we aim for zero accidents faster, we strive to speed up the transition to safe automation. This is essentially achieved by making cars updatable – like a computer or a phone. With regular software updates, a vehicle can be made safer long after its production. By accelerating improvement loops, shortening development cycles, and deploying high-capacity software quickly, we can make cars safer, and faster.

Culture with people at heart To achieve our mission of saving lives and ending traffic accidents we must go where nobody has before. It requires us to venture into the unknown, pioneering new technology and pushing the frontier of autonomous driving. While there’s no denying our determination and expertise, we must stand united to succeed. By fostering a culture of support and enablement – a place of psychological safety where all of us can thrive – everything else will follow. We call this a people-at-heart culture. This culture means caring. It means the company cares about me, and we care about one another. It means sharing, so we give each other energy and have fun together. Our culture is also about belonging. It’s important to feel at home and that we can be ourselves at work. Finally, a people-at-heart culture means well-being. So, we enjoy the flexibility needed to be and do our best – at work and in life.

*Zenseact works proactively to create a culture of diversity and inclusion, where individual differences are appreciated and respected. To drive innovation we see diversity as an asset, which means we value and respect differences in gender, race, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age, etc. * Interviews are held continuously, so we highly recommend that you submit your application at your earliest convenience.