Principal Research Scientist, Trust & Safety Alignment

Huawei Finland R&D; Helsinki; On-site; EUR 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Huawei Finland R&D seeks a Principal Research Scientist to lead AI alignment and safety research for LLMs, VLMs, and agentic AI systems. You will guide continuous/post-training strategies, architecture design, and model interpretability, ensuring robust, scalable outcomes.

You will collaborate with universities and cross-functional teams, translate research into production-ready solutions, and shape long-term research roadmap. Helsinki-based, full-time role.

Qualifications

• PhD in CS/ML or related field with a strong publication track record.
• Experience with large-scale AI systems and alignment research is essential.
• Expertise in LLM/VLM continuous/post-training and alignment.
• Strong programming and experimental skills for rigorous evaluation.

Responsibilities

• Lead research and development of AI alignment and safety for LLMs, VLMs, and agentic AI systems.
• Develop novel neural architecture and algorithm designs with scalable production potential.
• Define and contribute to AI Safety and Online Safety roadmaps and strategy.
• Prototype, evaluate, and translate research into robust, scalable solutions.
• Collaborate with universities and cross-functional teams; communicate complex ideas clearly.

Skills

LLM/VLM alignment

Reinforcement learning

Neural network editing

Model interpretability

Reverse engineering

Foundation models

Publication track record

Leadership in research

Multicultural collaboration

Education

PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Mathematics, or related field

Job description

Huawei Consumer Business Group is the leader in the all-scenario AI life. It covers smartphones, PC and tablets, wearables, mobile broadband devices, family devices and device cloud services. Huawei Consumer Business Group is dedicated to delivering the latest technologies to consumers. We believe in creating safe, privacy-friendly, and high-quality products with great user experiences for our consumers.

Content Security Lab in Helsinki Research Center’s mission to advancing technology to protect the online safety of Huawei mobile users in Harmony OS ecosystem. We build advanced AI safety and alignment solutions to ensure the trustworthiness, robustness, and safety of LLMs, VLMs, and agentic AI systems. Our research focuses on areas such as LLM/VLM continuous training, post-training and alignment, reinforcement and controlled learning, neural network editing, model interpretability, agentic AI safety, and machine unlearning.

We are looking for a passionate and technically strong research leader with a proven track record of solving challenging AI problems, advancing the state of the art, and translating groundbreaking research into solutions that can scale to production. The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in foundation models with strong research capabilities in continuous/post-training and alignment, reinforcement learning, neural network architecture and design, model editing, reverse engineering, and interpretability.

Responsibilities

• Lead research and development of advanced AI alignment and safety solutions for LLMs, VLMs, and agentic AI systems, with a focus on continuous/post-training, reinforcement learning, and aligning model behavior with human values and safety requirements.
• Research and develop novel approaches to neural network architecture and algorithm design, neural network editing, model interpretability, explainability, and reverse engineering, with the goal of understanding, modifying, and improving model behavior.
• Define research directions and contribute to the AI Safety and Online Safety research roadmap, identifying new opportunities to advance the state of the art.
• Design, prototype, and evaluate novel approaches through hands‑on research and experimentation, and translate successful research into robust, efficient, and scalable production solutions.
• Provide technical leadership and establish collaborations with universities, research institutions, and cross‑functional teams. Communicate complex research concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Mathematics, or a related field.
• 8+ years of research experience in AI/ML, AI safety, security, or a closely related field, with a strong research track record.
• Strong expertise in LLM/VLM continuous/post-training and alignment, including reinforcement learning, preference optimization, RLHF, adversarial training, or related techniques.
• Proven experience with neural network architecture, algorithm design, model optimization, and foundation models, ideally including large‑scale model development or deployment.
• Strong understanding or hands‑on experience in neural network editing, model interpretability, explainable AI, and reverse engineering of AI models or algorithms.
• Experience in using neuralsymbolic AI for accurate, fact grounded inference, and improves the model robustness, reduce hallucination is a big plus.
• Experience applying advanced AI techniques to areas such as AI safety, risk detection, reasoning, robustness, machine unlearning, security threat or abuse detection, fairness, or transparency is highly valued.
• Strong publication record in top‑tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, ACL, CVPR, ICCV, EMNLP, or NAACL.
• Ability to lead complex research initiatives, collaborate effectively in multicultural teams, and translate research ideas into practical, high‑impact solutions.

This is a full‑time employee position based in Ruoholahti, Helsinki.

Why Join Us?

• Define the research direction: As a Principal Research Scientist, you will help shape Huawei's research strategy in AI alignment, Trust & Safety, machine unlearning, and next‑generation LLM/VLM and agentic AI systems.
• Work at the intersection of research and real‑world impact: Your research will move beyond publications into large‑scale deployment, helping shape how foundation models are aligned, secured, interpreted, and governed.
• Lead cutting‑edge research: Work on challenging problems across reinforcement learning, post‑training alignment, neural network editing, model architecture, reverse engineering, and model interpretability.
• Join an international research environment: Work alongside experienced researchers and engineers in our AI Security Lab in Helsinki, with strong connections to universities and research teams globally.
• Drive long‑term research programs: Lead collaborations with leading universities and talented research teams and contribute to bold, multi‑year research initiatives.
• Make a real‑world impact: Your work will contribute to building safer and more trustworthy AI systems used at significant scale, helping protect millions of Huawei users.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services – we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. We have 207,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

Huawei continues to invest in basic research and open innovation, and accommodates and addresses customer needs with an open mind, while steering these needs with science and technology. We have also built flexible business models and encourage numerous industries to adopt a vast range of models and applications. Through such initiatives, we are bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

We seek and reward talent! At Huawei, if you are dedicated to creativity, engagement of technical risks and delivery of target‑driven results, your efforts will be rewarded with outstanding career prospects.

About Huawei FinlandR&D

With 28 sites across Europe and over 2000 researchers, Huawei’s European Research Institute (ERI) oversees fundamental and applied technology research, academic research cooperation projects, and strategic technical planning across our network of European R&D facilities.

Huawei Finland Research Center was established in 2012. At our sites in Helsinki and Tampere, you will have an outstanding opportunity to be part of the leading research and development of future smart devices. We offer a career in a forward‑looking industrial research team with a solid track record in innovation and publication and delivering its result as factual contributions to on‑the‑market devices.