Research Scientist - Driven Agent Self-Evolution - Global Frontier Tech Recruitment Program - 2027 Start (PhD)

Research Scientist

• Driven Agent Self-Evolution
• Global Frontier Tech Recruitment Program
• 2027 Start (PhD)

Location :

San Jose Team :

Technology Employment Type :

Regular Job Code :

A244605A

Apply to this job Share this listing: Responsibilities We are looking for talented individuals to join our team in 2027. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Launch your career where inspiration is infinite at our Company. Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by end of year 2027. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.

Team Introduction:

The Applied Machine Learning Ark team combines system engineering and machine learning to develop and operate Large Language Model (LLM) service platforms that offer businesses Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) solutions, serving both large model providers and downstream users. The US team drives the design, development, and operation of MaaS solutions across the US and international markets outside mainland China. We are building full-stack, end-to-end solutions spanning text and multimodal LLM algorithms, LLM training/fine-tuning/inference frameworks, prompt engineering, model alignment, and intelligent agent systems. Beyond model serving, we operate large-scale log analytics pipelines that process massive volumes of invocation logs from text models, multimodal models, and agent systems — extracting usage patterns, quality signals, and actionable insights to inform model improvement, system optimization, and product decisions through continuous, data-driven feedback loops. We are actively seeking talented engineers and researchers specializing in Large Language Models and AI Agent systems to join our dynamic team.

Topic Content:

As model capabilities improve and computation becomes cheaper, the key challenge in real-world deployment is no longer building a capable one-off assistant, but building agent systems that improve through use. This research studies a self-evolving agent framework in which execution traces, environmental responses, and human feedback are converted into signals for continual improvement. The goal is to establish a closed loop from execution to feedback, attribution, accumulation, and reuse, so that system capability grows with real-world interaction. We focus on three tightly coupled directions: adaptive runtime, which enables online adjustment of planning, tool use, and control policies; experience compilation, which abstracts reusable skills, rules, and failure patterns from trajectories; and evaluation-governance loops, which ensure that each system update is measurable, comparable, and reversible. Together, these components support a synergistic co-evolution of the model layer and the harness layer, improving task quality, reducing manual intervention, and accumulating durable capability over time. More broadly, this work reframes agent deployment as a continual learning systems problem: not how to build a stronger static agent, but how to build an operational system that learns reliably from experience.

Responsibilities:

• Research and develop agent frameworks that continuously learn and improve from execution traces, user feedback, and environmental signals.
• Build large-scale log analytics pipelines to extract quality signals, usage patterns, and actionable insights from model and agent invocation logs, driving data-informed system and model improvements.
• Explore and apply frontier techniques in LLM post-training, reasoning, and planning to enhance agent capabilities.
• Collaborate across algorithm research, platform engineering, and product teams to turn research ideas into production-grade systems at scale.

Qualifications Minimum Qualifications:

• Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a closely related discipline.
• Strong theoretical and practical foundation in machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, or optimization.
• Research experience in at least one of the following areas: LLM-based agents, planning and reasoning, multi-agent systems, continual/lifelong learning, or LLM post-training (e.g., RLHF, DPO, GRPO, self-play).
• Strong programming skills in Python and proficiency with ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX).
• Publication record at top-tier venues (e.

g., Neur

IPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, AAAI, AAMAS, COLM

).

• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Publications in areas directly related to agent learning and adaptation, such as tool use, self-improvement, skill discovery, trajectory optimization, reward modeling, or agent evaluation.
• Research experience in LLM reasoning and planning, including chain-of-thought, tree/graph search, Monte Carlo methods, or inference-time compute scaling.
• Experience training or fine-tuning large language models, including supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, or curriculum learning.
• Hands-on experience building or evaluating LLM-based agent systems (e.g., ReAct, function calling, code generation agents, or multi-agent orchestration).
• Familiarity with meta-learning, few-shot generalization, or transfer learning in the context of LLM-based systems.
• Experience with feedback-driven optimization loops, such as online learning, bandit methods, or evolutionary strategies applied to agent improvement.
• Strong interest in bridging frontier AI research with production-grade engineering — turning papers into systems that work at scale.
• Internship experience at technology companies or research organizations. Job Information 【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $212800
• $450000 annually.

​ Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units. ​ Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure). ​ 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. ​ About Us Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content. ​ 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 ​ Apply to this job