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

Responsibilities

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.
PhD internships at ByteDance provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

Responsibilities
- Develop generalized agents capable of solving complex real-world tasks through long-horizon reasoning, memory, and multi-turn interaction.
- Tackle the challenges of large-scale reinforcement learning, building systems that can scale across compute, data, and environments to improve model intelligence and alignment with human preferences.
- Advance agent capabilities in long-horizon, multi-step reasoning across diverse domains, aiming to match or surpass expert-level performance.
- Explore planning, tool use, and feedback mechanisms to enhance agent robustness and adaptability across domains.

Qualifications

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 top-tier ML/AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML).
- Solid programming and experimentation skills, including with RL or LLM frameworks.
- Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment

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

Job Information

About Doubao (Seed)

Founded in 2023, the ByteDance Doubao (Seed) Team, is dedicated to pioneering advanced AI foundation models. Our goal is to lead in cutting-edge research and drive technological and societal advancements.​

With a strong commitment to AI, our research areas span deep learning, reinforcement learning, Language, Vision, Audio, AI Infra and AI Safety. Our team has labs and research positions across China, Singapore, and the US.​

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance'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 ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.​

Diversity & Inclusion​

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.​

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request​

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $65- $65. ​

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. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:​

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;​

2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and​

3. Exercising sound judgment.​