PhD Multimodal Agentic Systems for Prescriptive Maintenance in Automotive Engineering (f/m/x)

THE FUTURE IS WHAT WE CREATE WHEN WE TAKE OUR VISIONS TO THE LIMITS.

PHD AT THE BMW GROUP.

Bridging the gap between your doctoral studies and the kind of career challenge you’re looking for isn’t always easy. That’s why our ProMotion PhD programme gives you the opportunity to apply your passion and scientific expertise to very real challenges that could shape the future of mobility. If selected, you’ll have the chance to really develop your own future career path with us through your practice-related thesis, promote your chosen specialty from within – and position yourself to secure the career you’ve always wanted.

As a PhD candidate in our team at the BMW Group, you will conduct cutting-edge research in the growth field of multimodal AI systems, with a focus on automotive powertrain development and data-driven quality assurance. Your work will make a central contribution to advancing robust, intent-aware models that support real-world engineering decision processes and enable scalable AI-based assistance systems within the BMW Group.

What awaits you?

• You will support the design, implementation and evaluation of multimodal learning architectures that combine text, structured data and additional modalities.
• You will systematically analyze modality dominance, missing modalities and corrupted inputs, and develop robust training strategies under realistic industrial constraints.
• Furthermore, you will investigate evaluation methodologies for retrieval and recommender systems in technical domains, with focus on robustness, generalization and transferability to production environments.
• Moreover, you will assist in close collaboration with internal engineering departments and academic partners, aiming to publish at internationally recognized top-tier conferences.
• Additionally, you gain exposure to industrial data pipelines and support the development of scalable prototypes with direct application potential.

What should you bring along?

• Master's degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, or a closely related technical field.
• Proven experience in implementing and training deep learning models, demonstrated through research projects, publications or public repositories.
• Strong background in natural language processing and modern transformer architectures.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch.
• Experience with experiment tracking and reproducibility tools such as Weights & Biases or MLflow.
• Solid software engineering practices, including Git, Docker and clean, maintainable code.
• Excellent English communication skills; German language skills are beneficial for collaboration with local stakeholders.

Are you passionate about cutting-edge AI research and eager to shape the future of automotive engineering through robust multimodal systems? Apply now!

What do we offer?

• Comprehensive mentoring & onboarding.
• Personal & professional development.
• Flexible working hours.
• Digital offers & mobile working.
• Attractive & fair remuneration.
• Annual special payments such as vacation pay and Christmas bonus.
• Apartment offers for students (subject to availability & only Munich).
• And many other benefits – see bmw.jobs/benefits

Start date: 04/01/2026

Duration: 36 months

Working hours: Part-time

You can find helpful tips on your application and the application process here.

At the BMW Group, we place great importance on equal treatment and equal opportunities. Our recruiting decisions are based on the personality, experience, and skills of the applicants. Learn more here.