PhD Student: Privacy Enhancing Technologies for LLMs and...

Huawei's Munich Research Center is responsible for advanced technology research, architectural development, design and strategic engineering of our products.

The privacy team investigates different topics at the intersection of privacy and machine learning and develops novel privacy-enhancing methods driven by real-world applications and requirements. We cover a broad spectrum of fields including, but not limited to contextual privacy, privacy evaluation of language models, differential privacy, synthetic data generation and federated learning.

As large language models (LLMs) and AI agents become embedded in a growing range of applications, they introduce new privacy risks related to sensitive data exposure, unintended memorization, and information extraction. Our research focuses on identifying and mitigating these risks by developing novel privacy-enhancing techniques tailored to LLM-driven systems and AI agents.

If you are passionate about machine learning research and motivated to advance privacy protections in LLMs and AI agents, we invite you to contribute to this effort by joining our team as a PhD student!

Join us as a

PhD Student in Privacy Enhancing Technologies for LLMs and AI agents (m/f/d)

Your mission

• Review the state of the art and remain current with advances in privacy for large language models (LLMs) and AI agents, including emerging attack vectors and defense mechanisms.

• Develop novel methods to enhance privacy in LLM- and agent-based systems, addressing risks such as sensitive data leakage, prompt-based extraction, unintended memorization, and privacy in tool use or multi-agent interactions.

• Implement the proposed methods as proof-of-concept prototypes and evaluate them on public and/or industrial datasets, with an emphasis on realistic deployment scenarios.

• Publish research findings at leading scientific conferences and journals in machine learning, security, and privacy.

• Collaborate actively with team members on interdisciplinary topics spanning machine learning, agent architectures, and privacy-preserving technologies.
  

Your areas of expertise

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or a related field.

• Strong theoretical and practical background in machine learning, deep learning, or natural language processing.

• Proficient programming skills in Python and experience with at least one major deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX).

• Familiarity with large language models and agent-based systems, including their development, evaluation, or deployment.

• Demonstrated interest in research, with the ability to formulate problems, design methods, and evaluate results rigorously.

• Knowledge of privacy and security techniques relevant to ML systems (e.g., differential privacy, adversarial testing, data governance, secure training, or model auditing) is a plus.

• Prior research experience or publications in machine learning, security, or privacy venues is advantageous.

• Excellent written and spoken English.

If you are enthusiastic to shape the German Research Center in Munich together with us, being part of a multicultural team and growing environment, feel free to contact us. Driving future technologies with focus on customer satisfaction is a one of our missions. Join us!

By applying to this position, you agree with our Recruitment Privacy Statement. You can read in full our privacy policy here .

Your rewards of working here

• Our culture is characterized by innovative power and team spirit as well as the intensive exchange of knowledge and experience within our global network.

• We offer healthy meals ranging from traditional Chinese to western delicacies in our famous company canteen.

• To keep your development ongoing, you will find a broad range of training opportunities. Many online and face-to-face training programs incl. language courses in German and Mandarin.

• Our diverse and welcoming environment is shaped by different backgrounds and around 40 individual nationalities.

• Self-responsible work in a competent, motivated and constantly growing team.

Please send your application and CV (incl. cover letter and reference letters) in English.

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Driven by a commitment to operations, ongoing innovation, and open collaboration, we have established a competitive ICT portfolio of end-to-end solutions in Telecom and enterprise networks, Devices and Cloud technology and services. Our ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. With 197,000 employees, Huawei is committed to develop the future information society and build a Better Connected World.