Student Researcher (LLM Post Training – Agent & Reinforcement Learning) - 2026 Start (PhD

Student Researcher (LLM Post Training – Agent & Reinforcement Learning) - 2026 Start (PhD)

Location:

San Jose

Team:
Technology

Employment Type:

Intern

Job Code: A253899

About the team The Seed LLM Post Training team is responsible for researching cutting-edge posttrain technologies and providing core posttrain capabilities for unified multimodal large models. The team's goal is to research and explore next-generation advanced technologies such as SFT, RM, RL, and self-learning during the posttrain phase, while significantly optimizing and improving key areas including reasoning, coding, agent, and omni model.

Responsibilities include:

• Explore large-scale models and optimize systems.
• Data construction, instruction tuning, preference alignment, and model optimization.
• Improving relevant model capabilities, such as reasoning, code, math etc.
• In-depth research and exploration of future use cases.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, AI, or a related field.
• Research experience in reinforcement learning, sequential decision-making, or agent behavior.
• First-author publications in accredited ML/AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML).
• Solid programming and experimentation skills, including with RL or LLM frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with LLM agents, tool use, or prompt-based control.
• Familiarity with environments such as Web Arena, ALFWorld, or programmatic reasoning tasks.
• Understanding of RL techniques such as reward shaping, memory augmentation, or curriculum learning.

As a condition of employment, all successful candidates must be able to establish authorization to work in the United States. For this position, the Company does not provide sponsorship or any immigration-related benefits.

For Pay Transparency Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $85- $85.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Established in 2023, the Byte Dance Seed team is dedicated to pioneering new paths toward artificial general intelligence. We aspire to advance the frontier of intelligence to drive progress for both technology and society.

With a long-term vision for the AI sector, the Seed team's research spans MLLM, Gen Media, AI for Science, and Robotics. We maintain a global presence with laboratories and career opportunities across China, Singapore, and the United States. To date, we have launched industry-leading general foundation models and cutting-edge multimodal capabilities. Our technology powers over 50 application scenarios — including Doubao, Jimeng, TRAE, Dola and Dreamnia — and serves enterprise customers through Volcano Engine and Byte Plus.

Third-party data shows that the Doubao App ranks first in user volume in the Chinese market, while Doubao foundation models lead the industry in average daily token consumption.

Inspiring creativity is at the core of Byte Dance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As Byte Dancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a…