Applied Reinforcement Learning Engineer

About the Team
Centific AI Research advances foundational AI models and applications through reinforcement learning, alignment, and human-centered intelligence. Our mission is to transform data, signals, and human insight into next-generation intelligent systems that redefine enterprise intelligence.
We're building a governed RL environment platform that enables enterprises to safely iterate and improve AI agent workflows through simulation-based learning, bridging human-labeled signal creation with automated RL training for high-stakes operations.

Role Overview
As an Applied RL Engineer, you will design and build RL environments that simulate complex enterprise workflows and train intelligent agents within them. You'll work at the intersection of RL research and production systems, translating customer requirements into bespoke simulation environments and post-training pipelines that deliver measurable improvements to AI agent performance.
This role requires deep expertise in both classical RL methodologies and modern LLM-based agent architectures. You'll shape our product direction and help make RL accessible to enterprise customers who need safe, compliant ways to improve their AI systems.

Core RL Competencies
Foundational RL
MDPs & value methods: State/action spaces, Q-learning, DQN, Double DQN, Dueling DQN
Policy gradient methods: REINFORCE, Actor-Critic, A2C/A3C, variance reduction
Advanced optimization: PPO, TRPO, SAC, trust regions, entropy regularization
TD learning: TD(0), TD(λ), eligibility traces, bootstrapping methods

LLM Alignment & Post-Training
RLHF pipelines: Reward model training, preference learning, human feedback integration
Direct optimization: DPO, IPO, KTO, offline preference optimization
Group-based methods: GRPO, RLOO, sample-efficient policy improvement
Reward modeling: Bradley-Terry models, reward hacking mitigation, KL constraints

Environment Design
Gymnasium/OpenAI Gym: Custom environments, observation/action spaces, wrapper patterns
Reward engineering: Sparse vs. dense rewards, potential-based shaping, intrinsic motivation
Verifier design: Programmatic reward functions, outcome verification, ground-truth evaluation
Simulation: Sim-to-real transfer, domain randomization, multi-agent dynamics

Advanced Techniques
Offline RL: CQL, BCQ, IQL for learning from fixed datasets without environment interaction
Model-based RL: World models, Dreamer, MuZero, learned dynamics
Hierarchical RL: Options framework, goal-conditioned policies, temporal abstraction
Imitation & exploration: Behavioral cloning, GAIL, curiosity-driven exploration, UCB

Key Responsibilities
Design and build custom RL environments (digital twins) simulating enterprise workflows: document processing, compliance, onboarding, support automation.
Post-train LLM-based agents on domain-specific tasks using PPO, GRPO, DPO, and RLHF.
Build end-to-end pipelines converting human-labeled traces into RL training data.
Architect multi-step reasoning agents with tool-calling and closed learning loops.
Design reward functions, verifiers, and validation frameworks for pre-deployment testing.
Translate cutting-edge RL research into production systems; contribute to publications.

Required Qualifications
Deep RL expertise: 3+ years hands-on experience with environment design, reward engineering, policy optimization.
LLM post-training: Experience fine-tuning LLMs using RLHF, DPO, PPO, or similar.
Production skills: Software engineering beyond research with scalable pipelines and training infrastructure.
Agentic AI: Experience with LLM-based agents, tool use, multi-step reasoning.
Technical stack: Strong Python; Gymnasium, RLlib, Stable Baselines; PyTorch/JAX/TensorFlow.
Education: MS/PhD in CS, ML, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Preferred Qualifications
Publications at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, or similar venues.
Enterprise workflow experience in healthcare, finance, logistics, or compliance.
Open-source contributions to CleanRL, TRL, veRL, or agent frameworks.
Experience with world models, synthetic data generation, and simulation.
Distributed training and large-scale RL experimentation.

Why Join Centific
Lead the frontier: Shape a new discipline at the intersection of RL, simulation, and enterprise AI.
Ship your science: See your research power real systems across healthcare, finance, and safety.
Collaborate with leaders: Work alongside NVIDIA, Microsoft, and the global AI community.
Build what matters: Create governed, compliant AI systems enterprises can trust.

Location: Palo Alto, CA or Seattle, WA (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Benefits:
Comprehensive healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
401k plan
Paid time off (PTO)
And more!
Company Overview:
Centific is a frontier AI data foundry that curates diverse, high-quality data, using our purpose-built technology platforms to empower the Magnificent Seven and our enterprise clients with safe, scalable AI deployment. Our team includes more than 150 PhDs and data scientists, along with more than 4,000 AI practitioners and engineers. We harness the power of an integrated solution ecosystem—comprising industry-leading partnerships and 1.8 million vertical domain experts in more than 230 markets—to create contextual, multilingual, pre-trained datasets; fine-tuned, industry-specific LLMs; and RAG pipelines supported by vector databases. Our zero-distance innovation™ solutions for GenAI can reduce GenAI costs by up to 80% and bring solutions to market 50% faster.
Our mission is to bridge the gap between AI creators and industry leaders by bringing best practices in GenAI to unicorn innovators and enterprise customers. We aim to help these organizations unlock significant business value by deploying GenAI at scale, helping to ensure they stay at the forefront of technological advancement and maintain a competitive edge in their respective markets.
Learn more about us at centific.com.
Centific is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.
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