diff --git a/src/art/megatron/service.py b/src/art/megatron/service.py
index c335d4e2..d6763cae 100644
--- a/src/art/megatron/service.py
+++ b/src/art/megatron/service.py
@@ -97,10 +97,13 @@ def _create_identity_lora(self, lora_path: str) -> None:
         from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
 
         lora_config = self._default_lora_adapter_config()
+        # Load on CPU to avoid claiming GPU memory — this runs before vLLM
+        # starts, and we only need the model to generate adapter config/weights
+        # on disk, not for any GPU computation.
         model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
             self.base_model,
             torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16,
-            device_map="auto",
+            device_map="cpu",
             trust_remote_code=True,
         )
         peft_model = get_peft_model(model, lora_config)
@@ -111,9 +114,8 @@ def _create_identity_lora(self, lora_path: str) -> None:
         os.makedirs(lora_path, exist_ok=True)
         peft_model.save_pretrained(lora_path)
         del peft_model, model
-        if torch.cuda.is_available():
-            torch.cuda.synchronize()
-            torch.cuda.empty_cache()
+        import gc
+        gc.collect()
 
     def _ensure_identity_lora(self, lora_path: str) -> None:
         if self._adapter_has_weights(lora_path):
@@ -186,8 +188,9 @@ async def _ensure_megatron_running(self) -> None:
         num_gpus = torch.cuda.device_count()
         os.environ["MODEL_IDENTIFIER"] = self.base_model
 
+        runner = "torchrun" if os.environ.get("RL_DOCKER") == "1" else "uv run torchrun"
         command = (
-            f"{setup_cmd}uv run torchrun --nproc_per_node {num_gpus} {train_script}"
+            f"{setup_cmd}{runner} --nproc_per_node {num_gpus} {train_script}"
         )
         self._megatron_process = await asyncio.create_subprocess_shell(command)
 
@@ -236,7 +239,7 @@ async def train(
         self._is_sleeping = True
         gc_and_empty_cuda_cache()
 
-        # Start Megatron after vLLM has freed GPU memory.
+        # Start Megatron on non-vLLM GPUs (vLLM keeps GPU 0 reserved).
         await self._ensure_megatron_running()
 
         lora_path = get_last_checkpoint_dir(self.output_dir)
@@ -292,15 +295,27 @@ async def train(
         )
         self._ensure_lora_adapter_config(new_checkpoint_dir, source_path=lora_path)
 
-        wake_lock_path = "/tmp/megatron_vllm_waking"
-        try:
-            with open(wake_lock_path, "w") as lock_file:
-                lock_file.write("waking vllm\n")
+        if os.environ.get("MEGATRON_EXIT_AFTER_JOB") == "1":
+            # Wait for the Megatron process to fully exit so all GPU memory
+            # (including CUDA context / NCCL buffers) is released before vLLM wakes.
+            if self._megatron_process is not None:
+                await self._megatron_process.wait()
+                self._megatron_process = None
             await run_on_workers(llm, do_wake_up)
             self._is_sleeping = False
-        finally:
-            if os.path.exists(wake_lock_path):
-                os.remove(wake_lock_path)
+        else:
+            # Megatron stays alive (offloaded to CPU). Use a wake lock so it
+            # waits for vLLM to finish reclaiming GPU memory before starting
+            # the next job.
+            wake_lock_path = "/tmp/megatron_vllm_waking"
+            try:
+                with open(wake_lock_path, "w") as lock_file:
+                    lock_file.write("waking vllm\n")
+                await run_on_workers(llm, do_wake_up)
+                self._is_sleeping = False
+            finally:
+                if os.path.exists(wake_lock_path):
+                    os.remove(wake_lock_path)
 
         await self._add_lora_aliases(llm, next_step, new_checkpoint_dir)
         await llm.resume_generation()
diff --git a/src/art/megatron/train.py b/src/art/megatron/train.py
index f1083f37..f567f7ce 100644
--- a/src/art/megatron/train.py
+++ b/src/art/megatron/train.py
@@ -340,3 +340,10 @@ def calculate_mask(
         with open("/tmp/megatron_training_log.jsonl", "a+") as log_file:
             log_file.write("all done\n")
         shutil.rmtree(job.disk_packed_tensors["dir"])
+    if os.environ.get("MEGATRON_EXIT_AFTER_JOB") == "1":
+        # Exit after each job so that all GPU memory (including CUDA context)
+        # is fully freed before vLLM wakes up.  The service restarts us for
+        # the next step.
+        torch.distributed.barrier()
+        torch.distributed.destroy_process_group()
+        break