We believe the future of recommendation is not only about predicting clicks, but about understanding the relationships between people and content and generating new connections. We value original exploration and encourage research thinking and engineering practice equally. Every team member can propose hypotheses and validate ideas in an open environment; your code and publications may help shape the next generation of recommendation systems. We are looking for people with a general-intelligence mindset to redefine recommendation with us.
We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. PhD internships at Our Company provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, as well as to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies.
Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early. Please clearly state your availability in your resume (Start date, End date).
Responsibilities:
1. Participate in the full training lifecycle of Recommendation Foundation Models, including pre-training, mid-training, and post-training.
2. Design and train multimodal semantic tokenizers for recommendation items, leveraging multimodal foundation models to encode rich item content into discrete semantic tokens and raise the performance ceiling of Recommendation Foundation Models.
3. Develop LLM-native recommendation by incorporating recommendation tasks directly into large language model training and leveraging world knowledge to improve recommendation quality.
4. Build the next generation of recommendation systems powered by Recommendation Foundation Models, spanning retrieval, ranking, and end-to-end generative recommendation.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or a related discipline.
- Solid foundation in machine learning and deep learning, with strong interest in LLMs and generative recommendation.
- Proficiency in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Self-driven, with a strong research mindset and solid engineering skills.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with pre-training, mid-training, or post-training of LLMs or Foundation Models.
- Research or project experience in generative recommendation, LLM-native recommendation, or multimodal semantic tokenization.
- Publications on LLM-related topics at top-tier machine learning or natural language processing conferences, such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, or NAACL, or strong achievements in major technical competitions.
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
f:TikTok is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request
