Open positions

Date:

I will be joining the faculty at IIIT Hyderabad in July 2025 and we are actively looking to fill for various positions. Some of these positions will open officially a few months down the line but please fill the form below or drop a note as indicated below if you are interested and we will reach out when appropriate.

  1. Deep learning track (DLM).
    • Open to a breadth of DL tasks including data and parameter efficiency, domain adaptation and low-resource setting, multi-modality involving speech and text, controllable models, optimized inference. This will follow-up on a thread of work that I did in the past with Vineet Gandhi on text-to-speech systems (and related work while at Amazon). We will build it on a stronger footing which includes setting up configurable and scalable data pipelines and training-loops, expand to textual tasks like machine translation, etc. There will be a heavy amount of programming in this line of work with significant empirical experiments to set up and run especially in the initial founding years. It will be a very good experience to build these systems ground-up. There will be a fair bit of math as is the case with any DL work.
    • This track will primarily recruit those enrolled at IIITH but a few research assistantship positions could open in due course.
  2. Interactive AI/ML systems (INS).
    • Any ML-heavy systems with human interactions like search and retrieval systems, recommender systems, advertising systems, chat-bots, etc. fall in this category. Apart from more fundamental problems like hypothesis testing in large systems (A/B testing, switchbacks), offline evaluation, we will also look into more recent challenges like data-feedback looks, multi-sided markets and the involved system dynamics, etc. It is now increasingly common to use simulations (like RecoGym, AuctionGym, Accordion, etc) to run these experiments. In some areas like traffic modelling and economics they are also called agent-based models. This is the specific area I will begin with but within the scope of information retrieval. This borrows heavily from other areas like reinforcement learning, counterfactual learning, etc.
    • This track will initially recruit those enrolled at IIITH but will open up to others outside in due course.
  3. Product research or AI regulation/policy (PRR).
    • I am open to exploring these topics with those having management studies background and are interested in studying the market gaps and impact specifically around ML/AI applications. Also those interested in studying certain policy or regulatory aspects of AI are welcome.  This will be in collaboration with faculty at IIM/IISc.
    • Reserved to those with strong relevant background and can work independently on these topics.

Collaborators and visitors (academic and industry)

  1. Ongoing doctoral students enrolled elsewhere or those working in the industry who wish to learn and explore any new topic may please drop a note and we can chat. It might be possible to cover some costs if it requires an extended stay at the campus.
  2. Those employed in the industry with very strong skills building large systems at scale interested in exploring a research problem of interest to them or their employer are particularly encouraged.

    Please drop a note by email and we can set up some time to chat.

Post-doctoral candidates

  1. If found mutually suitable, we can see if available funds can be repurposed to host you in the lab or explore alternative avenues for funding your stay. There is no restriction on topics but something close to my areas of interest would be nice. Candidates are expected to work independently as peers with other faculty.

    Please drop a note by email and we can set up some time to discuss.

Doctoral candidates

  1. Currently there is one open position and the topic can be anything around general ML/DL/RL or applications to NLP/Speech, information extraction or retrieval, etc. The admission process is as laid down by the institute and is supported by the university stipend. However, there is an option to use alternative sources of funding to top-up the university stiped to be on par with the highest granted in the country (possibly PMRF) and for exceptional cases match industry salary of engineers with similar skills.
  2. Part-time PhD for those working in the industry is also an option and highly encouraged for very motivated cadidates with systems/engineering/product experience.

    Please fill this form and drop a note by email and we can set up some time to discuss further.

Students not enrolled at IIIT-H

If you have strong skills relevant to areas of interest listed above and can work with us for a considerable period, please consider applying for one of the following positions. Unfortunately, engagements shorter than 6 months are not possible at this time. There are two avenues depending on the candidate’s situtation.

  1. Pre-doctoral or research assistants: Must have finished undergraduate program and available for at least a year of work. Serves as a gap year for those exploring opportunities.
    • Pre-doctoral are typically those interested in a PhD program at IIIT Hyderabad or elsewhere.
    • Research assistantships are for those keen on developing strong engineering/science skills for industry jobs or alternatively for those already employed in the industry looking for a gap to explore science-heavy roles.
  2. Internship or thesis project: Admits those enrolled in undergraduate or masters programs with availability for 6 months or longer.

    Please fill this form, no email needed. Applications applied through the form will be processed by the team at regular cadence.