Research Internship

Job Description

About Tableau Research:

Tableau Research is an industrial research team dedicated to Tableau’s mission of helping people see and understand data. They function as a world-class industry research lab, partnering with internal teams and academia to foster innovation and serve as thought leaders, advancing the state-of-the-art in data and analytics. The team actively publishes and participates in top-tier conferences and journals, contributing to both product development at Tableau and the broader academic community.

Job Description: Research Internship

A Tableau Research internship involves a collaborative project defined in consultation between the intern and their mentor. The project aims to further the intern’s research career and inspire new ideas for Tableau and Salesforce’s future product roadmaps. Internships offer opportunities to explore industry research, gain insights into product development, and potentially publish work at top academic conferences.

Responsibilities:

• Project Collaboration: Daily meetings with a mentor to coordinate, plan, and manage expectations. Regular updates and presentations at team meetings.
• Research Activities: This may include designing and/or prototyping, conducting user studies, analyzing data (qualitative and quantitative), statistical modeling, and creating user interfaces. Specific tasks depend on the project’s focus (visual analytics, conversational analytics, semantics & data preparation, human-computer & multi-modal interaction, machine learning, AI/LLMs).
• Deliverables: Creation of a final presentation and written report summarizing the project. Potential co-authorship of an academic paper, extending beyond the internship.

Qualifications:

• Alignment with Tableau’s Mission: A passion for research that aligns with Tableau’s mission of helping people see and understand data.
• Academic Standing: PhD student in good academic standing with at least two years of research experience and publications in high-quality conference and journal venues (e.g., VIS, EuroVis, IUI, CHI, CSCW, UIST, AAAI, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, NeurIPS).
• Technical Skills: Strong technical skills in at least one relevant area depending on the project:
• Prototyping: Proficiency in languages such as D3/JavaScript, Python, R, C++, C#, Java, or Go.
• User Studies: Experience designing, conducting, and analyzing user studies involving qualitative and quantitative data.
• Statistical Modeling: Strong computational skills and experience in statistical modeling, including data wrangling, model validation, and uncertainty assessment.
• UX/UI Design: Portfolio demonstrating experience in UX/interaction/visualization design (if the project involves interface prototyping).
• Communication Skills: Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Executive Skills: Diligence, personal responsibility, effective time management, ability to balance independent work with meeting deadlines, and efficient prioritization of tasks.