Part-time Engineer (Temporary Appointment)

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR FEDERATED LEARNING

Part-time Engineer (Temporary Appointment) (Ref. 261009012)

[Appointment period: three to twelve months]

Duties

The appointee will be required to work for one of the constituent research units – Research Institute for Federated Learning (RIFL) under the PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence (PAAI).  He/She will be required to:

(a) design and implement robust Large Language Model (LLM)-powered agent systems in specific domains, be capable of data collection and processing, model inference, model fine-tuning, self-evolution and long-term planning;

(b) integrate and optimise advanced autonomous coding and browser-control tools, such as Claude Code and OpenClaw, to automate internal developer workflows and external data-gathering tasks;

(c) fine-tune and prompt-engineer various LLMs, such as Claude 3.5, GPT-4 and Llama 3, to achieve specific agentic behaviors, with a focus on reducing latency and improving accuracy and efficiency;

(d) build the backend services, vector databases and state-management systems required to maintain agent "memory" across complex sessions;

(e) develop rigorous testing frameworks to measure agent reliability, safety and performance, moving beyond simple accuracy to evaluate "reasoning" paths;

(f) build a federated agentic system incorporating privacy-enhanced techniques to provide private and collaborative solutions to the agentic workflow; and

(g) perform any other duties as assigned by the Director of RIFL under PAAI or their delegates.

Qualifications

Applicant should:

(a) have a recognised degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Electronic Engineering or a related discipline;

(b) have at least five years of relevant post-qualification work experience;

(c) have in-depth knowledge in working with LLM APIs, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, and local deployments;

(d) have proven experience in agentic frameworks such as Claude Code, OpenClaw or Cursor;

(e) be proficient in coding and Machine Learning tools, such as Python and PyTorch;

(f) have experience in data and infrastructure with vector stores and containerization, such as Docker and Kubernetes, and GPU infrastructure;

(g) have a good command of both written and spoken English and Chinese; and

(h) have good communication skills.

Preference will be given to those with experience in federated learning and privacy computing.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to sit for a written test.

Conditions of Service

The remuneration rate is HK$220 per hour.

Application

Please submit an application through PolyU’s career website (https://jobs.polyu.edu.hk/management).  Consideration of applications will commence on 16 October 2026 until the position is filled.  The University’s Personal Information Collection Statement for recruitment can be found at https://www.polyu.edu.hk/hro/careers/pics\_for\_recruitment/.

PolyU is an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to fostering an environment that embraces diversity and demonstrates inclusion of people from all backgrounds, cultures, identities and experiences where all members of the University are treated with fairness, dignity and respect.  To learn more about the University’s “Statement on Equal Opportunities, Diversity, and Inclusion”, please visit our website at https://www.polyu.edu.hk/hro/equal\_opportunities\_diversity\_and\_inclusion/.