Research Internship Systems 2022

Do you want to work on technology that enriches the lives of over 70% of the world’s population?

Arm is the industry's leading supplier of microprocessor technology.  We provide efficient, low-power chip intelligence which makes electronic innovations come to life.  Through our partners, our designs power everything from coffee machines to the fastest supercomputer in the world.  Our research internship programme is now open for applications! We want to hear from curious and enthusiastic candidates interested in working with us on the future of compute.

About Arm and Arm Research

Arm plays a key role in our increasingly connected world. Every year, more than 20 billion products featuring Arm technology are shipped.  Our engineers design and develop CPUs, graphics processors, complex system technologies, supporting software development tools, and physical libraries.  At Arm Research, we develop new technology that can grow into new business opportunities. We keep Arm up-to-speed with recent technological developments by pursuing blue-sky research programmes, closely collaborating with academia, and integrating emerging technologies into the wider Arm ecosystem.  Our research spans a diverse range of topics, from circuits to theoretical computer science, and may be applied wherever compute happens, from mobile and personal computing to server, cloud, edge, and HPC.  We all share a passion for learning and creating.

About the systems group and our work

Members of the Systems Group research novel systems built around existing and future Arm technology.  We investigate large-scale computing, edge and in-network computing, confidential computing, and similar. We tackle research questions like: how do we tweak Arm technology to be better suited for use in those systems? How do we balance hardware diversity with the software ecosystem? How do we evaluate these systems?  What new software can be implemented using emerging Arm technology?

In one thread of research, we build proof-of-concept implementations that apply and extend Arm technology to tackle real-world problems. Veracruz, one of our open-source projects, uses trusted hardware as a means of effecting privacy-preserving computation between mutually untrusted parties. IceCap, another ongoing open-source project, applies the high-assurance seL4 Operating System to provide a trustworthy platform for virtualization at the network edge.

Our second thread of research is establishing the correctness and security of systems, particularly low-level and infrastructure-related systems Arm provides to our partners. We apply traditional verification techniques such as model checking and theorem proving to verify Arm’s hardware and software. Other projects look at combining machine learning and verification techniques to identify vulnerabilities and detect attacks in hardware. We are also working on the cryptography challenges against quantum computing, e.g., how an emerging set of post-quantum ciphers can be efficiently implemented on power-constrained Arm microcontrollers.

Finally, building robust, trustworthy distributed systems requires efficient control of resources. In our third thread of research, we are exploring the use of lightweight virtualization techniques to improve isolation and security when executing multiple workloads.

Job requirements

Education

• Our interns typically pursue master's or PhD degrees in engineering and science, most commonly Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics, but we encourage applications from any field of study if you are motivated and feel your unique skills are relevant to what we do.
• We will also consider your application if you are pursuing an undergraduate or bachelor's degree and have relevant project or work experience.

Skills and Experience

• System design, programming, and debugging experience in at least one language (such as C, C++, Rust, Golang, Java, Python or Ruby).
• Comfortable with shell script and Git.
• Our team members have a wide array of interests and skills in designing and analysing systems and have a background in many relevant fields. Any experience with virtualization technologies such as Linux containers, virtual machines and hypervisors, low-level details of operating systems, distributed systems, function-as-a-service, large-scare and edge computing, information security, cryptography and cryptographic engineering, and formal methods and verification is a plus. Most of our work involves building prototypes, minimum demonstrators, or test vehicles for benchmarking and validation purposes.

Our internships and how to apply

If your research interests align with ours, and you are enthusiastic about the type of work we do, we invite you to apply for an internship.  As an intern with Arm Research, you will get a first-hand view of how Arm crafts its technology and maintains an ecosystem of more than one thousand partners–––a partnership that has shipped over 170 billion leading-edge Arm-powered processors.

We will work closely with you to develop an internship project that is tailored to your interests. Our internships are three months long with flexible start dates. We offer continuous support, feedback, and development opportunities, as well as flexibility to decide how to complete project tasks.  You will work alongside experienced researchers within the Systems group, doing real project tasks. We believe in developing talent for the future, so we seek to offer many of our interns a graduate position once they have finished their studies.

When applying, please provide a cover note with your application detailing the kind of projects you would like to work on. If you have a clear idea about the work you want to do, include it in your letter. Note that it is fine if you are not completely sure–––many of our successful interns, in previous years, initially came to us with only a vague idea of what they would like to work on!  Also, please tell us about your studies, and what you enjoy.

Arm Research recognizes that diverse and inclusive teams generate exceptional ideas and innovations critical to an outstanding research organization's success.  We do not discriminate because of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Arm is an equal opportunity employer, committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal opportunities are available to all applicants and colleagues. We are a diverse organization of dedicated and innovative individuals, and don’t discriminate on the basis of any characteristic.