Research Scientist (RLHF/RL)

HCLTech
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Location: Noida or Bengaluru

About the Role

This is the most technically differentiated research role in the company. You'll design the reward functions and RL algorithms that power the post-training behind the models we build — work that genuinely determines whether the models we ship are good.

What You'll Do

  • Design reward functions and RL recipes, including PPO/GRPO/DPO-family algorithms, for both our platform and our own model post-training
  • Ensure customer-supplied reward functions integrate cleanly and train stably on our platform
  • Diagnose and resolve RL training instability
  • Collaborate closely with our infrastructure team on rollout and environment requirements
  • Track new RL research and make the call on what's actually worth adopting

What You'll Bring

  • 8+ years of relevant experience, including PhD training, in Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, or a closely related field — the underlying theory here takes years to build, and this is largely a PhD-level hiring bar
  • Deep, hands-on experience with modern RL algorithms (PPO, GRPO, DPO, or similar) and reward modeling
  • Proficiency in PyTorch or JAX
  • Strong statistical intuition for diagnosing why an RL training run is or isn't working

Education

  • PhD in Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or Physics, from a Tier-1 institution.

Nice to Have

  • A research background from a leading RL lab or applied AI company
  • Publication record in reinforcement learning or RLHF

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