RLHF & Human Feedback

RLHF & Human Feedback Services

High-agreement human preference data for aligning large language models. Digitive runs managed human-feedback programs — preference and pairwise ranking, response comparison and reward-model data — delivered by calibrated, domain-expert evaluators rather than an anonymous crowd.

Explore AI & LLM evaluation

Why human feedback decides model quality

A model is only as aligned as the human preferences it learns from. When preference data comes from an anonymous crowd, agreement between evaluators is often low — and low agreement leaves real capability gains on the table.

Specialist evaluators who understand the domain surface the nuance that general crowdworkers miss, and produce preference data consistent enough to actually improve a model.

A managed team, not a crowd

Digitive delivers RLHF work through a managed, vetted team model. Evaluators are qualified by domain, calibrated on your rubric before live work, and held to a quality standard that is measured, not assumed.

Quality control stays in-house across the program — so preference data is reviewed, agreement is tracked, and issues are corrected before the data reaches your team.

What we deliver for RLHF programs

The building blocks of a human-feedback pipeline, delivered as a managed program.

Preference & pairwise ranking

Side-by-side comparison of model responses, ranked by expert evaluators against your criteria.

Response comparison + reason capture

Structured comparisons with written rationale, so a preference is explainable — not just a label.

Reward-model data

Preference and ranking signals prepared as data to train and refine reward models.

SFT demonstration data

Instruction–response demonstrations supplied as supporting context alongside preference work.

Calibrated expert evaluators

Vetted, domain-qualified evaluators calibrated before they touch live tasks.

RLHF-specific quality assurance

Multi-tier review, agreement tracking and re-grading built around preference tasks.

How we run a human-feedback program

A structured workflow from rubric setup to delivery — with calibration and quality control built in at every stage.

  1. Task & rubric setup

    We work from your use cases to structure tasks and the rubric evaluators apply.

  2. Evaluator qualification

    Specialists are vetted and tiered by domain and skill before assignment.

  3. Calibration

    Calibration rounds align evaluators on the rubric before and during live work.

  4. Response comparison & preference ranking

    Evaluators compare responses and produce ranked preferences with rationale where required.

  5. Quality review

    Senior QC leads review output with per-annotator quality dashboards.

  6. Agreement tracking & re-grading

    Inter-annotator agreement is tracked; lower-performing work is re-graded and escalated.

  7. Delivery & iteration

    Preference and reward-model data is delivered on a cadence, with calibration cycles feeding the next batch.

Preference data and response comparison

At the core of RLHF is a simple, repeated act done well: an evaluator sees a prompt and two or more model responses, and decides which is better — and why.

Done at scale with consistency, those comparisons become the preference and reward-model data your post-training pipeline needs.

Pairwise & multi-response comparison

Responses are compared side by side against defined criteria.

Ranking with rationale

Evaluators rank responses and, where required, capture the reason for the preference.

Reward-model data

Ranked preferences are prepared as signals to train reward models.

Consistency across evaluators

Rubrics and calibration keep judgments comparable across the team.

Selecting and calibrating evaluators

Preference data is only as good as the people producing it. Evaluators are vetted and tiered by domain and skill, then calibrated against your rubric before they work on live tasks — with calibration rounds continuing throughout the engagement.

Vetted specialists

Domain-qualified evaluators, tiered by skill and subject expertise.

Calibrated before live work

Rubric alignment and knowledge checks before any task is scored.

Ongoing recalibration

Regular calibration syncs keep the team aligned as work continues.

Quality assurance built for preference tasks

Preference work has its own failure modes. Our quality methodology is designed around them.

Calibration rounds

Evaluators calibrate against the rubric before live work and re-sync on a regular cadence.

Blind gold-set checks

Known-answer items are injected into live work to monitor evaluator reliability.

Independent QC

A dedicated quality layer reviews output — quality control is not subcontracted away.

Inter-annotator agreement

Agreement between evaluators is measured and monitored across the program.

Evaluator retraining

Lower-quartile work is re-graded and evaluators are re-briefed on recurring issues.

Multi-tier final review

Preference data passes multiple review layers before it reaches your team.

Specialist feedback

Domain-specialist feedback where it matters

Some responses can only be judged by someone who knows the field. For specialist content — such as code, math and reasoning — preferences are collected from evaluators with the relevant expertise, not generalists guessing at correctness.

That domain lens is what makes preference data trustworthy for models being pushed toward expert-level performance.

Code & engineering

Math & reasoning

Technical domains

And more

Scaling a program without losing quality

Ramping a human-feedback program usually means a trade-off between speed and quality. We ramp from a pre-vetted specialist bench, hold calibration cycles as the team grows, and keep per-evaluator quality visible throughout — so the program scales while agreement holds.

Delivered RLHF engagement — frontier AI lab

Proven at frontier-model scale

150+

PhD & Masters evaluators on the program

85%+

Inter-annotator agreement on preference ranking

60 days

From kickoff to full production scale

Figures describe a specific delivered engagement for a frontier AI lab.

How RLHF fits with evaluation and fine-tuning

RLHF is one layer of post-training. It sits alongside supervised fine-tuning (SFT) — which teaches a model from demonstrations — and alongside broader AI & LLM evaluation services that judge how well a model actually performs.

Many teams pair human feedback with adversarial safety testing. Where that applies, our AI red teaming work runs under the same managed team model, so preference data and safety findings come from one coordinated program.

RLHF questions, answered

RLHF — reinforcement learning from human feedback — is a technique for aligning large language models using human judgment. People compare and rank a model’s responses, and that preference data is used to train a reward model that guides the LLM toward the responses people actually prefer.

A provider recruits and calibrates human evaluators, collects preference and pairwise-comparison data, prepares reward-model data, and runs the quality control that keeps that feedback consistent — so your team gets usable alignment data instead of raw, noisy labels.

Evaluators are shown a prompt and two or more model responses, compare them side by side, and rank them against a defined rubric — often with a short written rationale. Gold-set checks and calibration keep those judgments consistent across the team.

Digitive works through a managed, vetted team model rather than an anonymous crowd. Evaluators are qualified by domain and skill, tiered accordingly, and calibrated on the rubric before they work on live tasks.

Inter-annotator agreement (IAA) measures how consistently different evaluators reach the same judgment. Combined with blind gold-set checks and re-grading, it is the main signal that preference data is reliable enough to train on.

Supervised fine-tuning (SFT) teaches a model from demonstrations of good responses. RLHF aligns a model using human preferences between responses. They are different, complementary steps in post-training — SFT provides demonstrations, RLHF provides preference signals.

RLHF produces the human-preference data that aligns a model, while LLM evaluation judges how well the model performs. Both are human-in-the-loop. Many teams run them together — see Digitive’s AI & LLM evaluation services for the broader picture.

By ramping from a pre-vetted specialist bench, holding calibration cycles as the team grows, and keeping per-evaluator quality visible so quality is managed as the program scales — not traded away for volume.

Discuss an RLHF program

Tell us about your model and your alignment goals. We’ll scope a human-feedback program built around your rubric and your domains.

Explore AI & LLM evaluation

Cookie Policy

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, analyze site traffic, and personalize content. By clicking "Accept All," you consent to our use of cookies. Learn more