TikTok
Posted 3w ago

Machine Learning Engineer Intern (TikTok-Data-Search-Search Quality) - 2026 Start (PhD)

TikTok
San Jose, California, United States
OnsiteInternship, Full Time
Responsibilities
  • designing features
  • analyzing data
  • writing code
Requirements
  • PhD student internship (12 weeks full-time). Strong coding
  • Algorithms, and data-structure skills
  • Experience or interest in NLP
  • Ranking
  • Recommender systems
  • Distributed systems, and machine learning

Job description

The Search team builds the systems that help users find relevant, reliable, and engaging content across TikTok. The team works across search retrieval, ranking, recommendation signals, query understanding, relevance, infrastructure, and product experiences. Our work combines large-scale machine learning, data-driven product development, and distributed systems to improve search quality for a global user base.

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
- Support the design, implementation, testing, and iteration of Search features, services, or tools under the guidance of engineers and mentors.
- Work with large-scale data, logs, metrics, or experiments to understand user search behavior and improve product or system quality.
- Collaborate with engineering, product, data science, and machine learning partners to define requirements and deliver project milestones.
- Write clear, maintainable code and documentation for assigned workstreams.
- Communicate progress, risks, and learnings with mentors and stakeholders throughout the internship.

Minimum Qualifications
- Must be able to commit to a 12-week full-time work.
- Currently pursuing a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Proficient coding skills and strong algorithm & data structure basis.
- Effective communication and teamwork skills.
- Experience in one or more of the following areas: NLP, Ranking, Ads, search engine, recommender system, distributed system, and machine learning.

Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with search, recommendation, machine learning, information retrieval, natural language processing, ranking, ads, content understanding, or data mining projects.
- Familiarity with databases, distributed systems, data pipelines, experimentation, or large-scale backend services.
- Experience using data to investigate product, user, or system problems.
- Ability to communicate technical ideas clearly and collaborate with cross-functional partners.
- Interest in improving search experiences for large-scale consumer products.

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

About TikTok

Global short-form video hosting and social media platform.

Year founded
2016
Employees
10000
Organization type
Private
Latest investment
Raised $9.40B Private Equity (2020) — led by SoftBank, KKR, General Atlantic
Subsidiaries
Headquarters
US

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