IIT Kharagpur CSE Research Associate Recruitment 2026

IIT Kharagpur CSE Research Associate Recruitment 2026: Overview

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) is recruiting a Research Associate for a Computer Science and Engineering project coordinated by Rajat Subhra Chakraborty. The project is developing a secure, intelligent and indigenous network packet processor on an FPGA, with a hardware-based stateful firewall for real-time intrusion detection and prevention. The appointment is a temporary research role connected to this defined project.

The project brings cybersecurity, hardware acceleration and artificial intelligence into one research problem. A network packet processor has to examine traffic quickly, while the stateful-firewall and intrusion-detection parts need enough context to identify suspicious behaviour. The Research Associate profile adds machine learning to that system, so your contribution should help turn data and models into techniques that can work alongside the hardware platform.

This role is broader than routine software development. The official notice looks for strong Python programming and experience with common machine-learning frameworks such as PyTorch. It also says the researcher should be open to applying AI and ML principles across different application domains. That wording suits someone who can understand a new problem, prepare an experimental approach, test a model carefully and explain whether the result is useful outside a single dataset.

A good fit will combine research independence with practical coding discipline. You may need to study network or security data, build prototypes, compare alternative learning methods and work with colleagues developing the packet-processing hardware. Clear experiment records, reusable code and honest evaluation are important because the software findings must remain understandable to a multidisciplinary project team. The project is especially relevant if you want your AI work to connect with FPGA systems and real-time cybersecurity rather than remain a standalone analytics exercise.

Service Conditions and Caveats

• Nature of engagement: IIT Kharagpur describes this as a temporary project position. It is not presented as a regular institute appointment.
• Project scope: The research remains tied to the indigenous packet-processor, hardware-firewall and intrusion-detection objectives in the official project title.
• Research leadership: The coordinator and principal investigator is Rajat Subhra Chakraborty from Computer Science and Engineering.
• Interdisciplinary work: You should be comfortable discussing model behaviour with researchers working on hardware and network-security components, not only with AI specialists.

Application Submission Notes

Use the IIT Kharagpur SRIC online recruitment system for reference IIT/SRIC/R/NGS/2026/110. The specific project page identifies the correct assignment and links to its application form; the general SRIC vacancy page lists many unrelated projects.

• Study machine-learning uses for the secure network packet-processor project
• Develop research prototypes and analysis code in Python
• Use frameworks such as PyTorch to build and test models
• Prepare datasets and evaluate model behaviour across application domains
• Compare experimental results and identify technical limitations
• Coordinate software research with hardware and cybersecurity work
• Document code, methods and findings for the project team