Research Engineer Intern, Speech Generation - Spring 2026

Department: Internships

Location: Genies San Francisco

Employment Type: Intern

Genies is an avatar technology company powering the next era of interactive digital identity through Smart Avatars. With the Avatar Framework and intuitive creation tools, Genies enables developers, talent, and creators to generate and deploy game-ready Smart AI companions. The company’s technology stack supports full customization, AI-generated fashion and props, and seamless integration of user-generated content (UGC). Backed by investors including Bob Iger, Silver Lake, BOND, and NEA, Genies’ mission is to become the visual and interactive layer for the LLM-powered internet.

Genies is an avatar technology company powering the next era of interactive digital identity through AI companions. With the Avatar Framework and intuitive creation tools, Genies enables developers, talent, and creators to generate and deploy game-ready AI companions. The company’s technology stack supports full customization, AI-generated fashion and props, and seamless integration of user-generated content (UGC). Backed by investors including Bob Iger, Silver Lake, BOND, and NEA, Genies’ mission is to become the visual and interactive layer for the LLM-powered internet.

About the Role:

Genies is looking for a passionate Research Engineer Intern to join our core AI team at our Bay Area office in San Francisco, CA. You will solve fundamental technical challenges in creating socially-aware, autonomous, and creative AI characters and companions. Working closely with a dedicated team of engineers and researchers, you will bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world product impact.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Research, design, and implement state-of-the-art Generative AI models for speech generation, including Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Voice Clone.

• Investigate and apply novel architectures such as Flow Matching, or Autoregressive Transformers to improve audio fidelity and voice cloning capabilities.

• Develop techniques for disentangled representation learning to separate speaker identity from prosody and emotion, enabling highly controllable and expressive character voices.

• Optimize deep learning models for real-time inference, focusing on latency reduction and throughput improvement.

What You Should Have:

• Currently pursuing a Master’s or PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Electrical Engineering, or a related quantitative field.

• Demonstrated experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch) and Python programming.

• Solid understanding of digital signal processing (DSP) fundamentals and audio synthesis concepts.

• Experience with at least one relevant area: Speech Synthesis, Voice Clone, or Generative Modeling.

What We Prefer 

• First-author publications in top-tier venues such as ICASSP, Interspeech, NeurIPS, ICML, or ICLR.

• Familiarity with model optimization techniques (quantization, distillation) and inference acceleration.

• Knowledge or experience integrating machine learning models into production environments.

• Previous internship or research experience in audio AI or related domains.

How Genies will support you

Genies is a well-funded, growing start-up that cares deeply about each of our employees' growth and success. Our roles and their responsibilities are created with a breadth of scope that introduces each employee to exciting new challenges and opportunities that a growing start-up encounters. The actual base pay is dependent upon a number of factors, including: professional background, training, transferable skills, work experience, education, location, business and product needs, and market demand. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. Full-time employees may also be eligible for equity compensation, in addition to a robust health, wellness, and benefits package. 

Starting Salary Range: $45-$55

Here's why you'll love working at Genies:

• You'll work with a team that you’ll be able to learn from and grow with, including support for your own professional development

• You'll be at the helm of your own career, shaping it with your own innovative contributions to a nascent team and product with flexible hours and a work from home policy

• You'll enjoy the culture and perks of a startup, with the stability of being well funded 

• Comprehensive health insurance for you and your family (Anthem + Kaiser Options Available), Dental and Vision Insurance

• Competitive salaries and 401K program for all full time employees 

• Flexible paid time off, sick time, and paid company holidays, in addition to paid parental leave, bereavement leave, and jury duty leave for full-time employees

• Health & wellness support through programs such as monthly wellness reimbursement 

• Working in a brand new, bright, open-environment and fun office space - there’s even a slide! 

Genies is an equal opportunity employer committed to promoting an inclusive work environment free of discrimination and harassment. We value diversity, inclusion, and aim to provide a sense of belonging for everyone.

How Genies will support you

• Competitive salary and equity packages

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance

• Unlimited PTO

• Parental leave

• Hybrid work structure (minimum 4 days in office weekly)

• Monthly wellness reimbursement

Genies is a well-funded, fast-growing start-up that values innovation, creativity, and ownership. Our roles and their responsibilities are created with a breadth of scope that introduces each employee to exciting new challenges and opportunities that a growing start-up encounters. The actual base pay is dependent upon a number of factors, including: professional background, training, transferable skills, work experience, education, location, business and product needs, and market demand. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.