About Valency

Valency Systems is a small, dynamic team of engineers, scientists, and researchers building the global hub for the agentic research era.

We're based in Berkeley, California, and we're building something that matters. If you care about open science, advancing research at the speed of thought, and using AI to accelerate discovery, we'd love to talk.

As an intern, you'll be fully in-office 5 days a week over the summer — a great way to immerse yourself in the team and get the most out of your experience.

The Role

This role is customer facing and reports to our Go-to-Market (GTM) lead. It is not a marketing role, but rather a research and synthesis role. Your job is to be our ears inside the academic community — to understand how researchers actually work, where existing tools fall short, and where Valency's Bond product creates real value vs. where it is a stretch.

We are at the stage where the most valuable thing we can do is listen. You will design and run structured discovery interviews, map researcher workflows, and synthesize your findings into clear, actionable insights that directly shape our product roadmap and GTM strategy. The output of this role will be read by the founders and used to make real decisions.

What You'll Do

• Design and conduct 20–30 structured interviews with researchers, postdocs, PhD students, lab managers, and PIs across STEM and social science disciplines

• Map current workflows around literature discovery, data access, and AI tool adoption, including workarounds and frustrations

• Identify the 2–3 use cases where Bond MCP creates the most genuine pull vs. where adoption would require behavior change

• Document findings in a synthesized format (not just raw notes) that informs product and messaging decisions

• Work directly with Valency's GTM lead to prioritize insights and translate them into testable hypotheses

• Recruit interview participants through university networks, academic social channels (BlueSky, X), and lab connections

Who You Are

• You have firsthand experience in academic research. You have run experiments, written papers, or spent real time in a lab environment

• You are genuinely curious about how researchers work and can make people feel comfortable sharing honest frustrations

• You can turn messy qualitative data into clear, structured insight. This is a synthesis and communication role as much as a listening role

• You are organized and self-directed

• You are comfortable with ambiguity and early-stage environments where the playbook does not exist yet

Your Experience

• PhD student or postdoc in any STEM or social science field and/or

• MBA student/graduate with a research or science background and/or

• You have spent meaningful time doing actual academic research and understands what the daily workflow of a researcher looks like from the inside.

This role does not require a technical background, but you must understand the academic context well enough to have credible conversations with domain experts.

What You'll Get

You'll work alongside founders and senior team members, not in a silo. Ship real work that matters. Learn building a dynamic company to support open science and agentic research. Experience startup culture with learning sessions and cross-team exposure. You'll interact with interesting academics and researchers from across many disciplines.

Details

• Duration: 10–12 weeks (Summer 2026), flexible

• This is a summer internship, but we're building a team — strong employees may continue into the fall or convert to a full-time role.

• Location: Berkeley (on-site, in office)

• Compensation: Competitive hourly rate, commensurate with experience and track

• Work Authorization: Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.