Data Scientist, Trust & Safety - USDS

Why Join Us
Creation is the core of TikTok's purpose. Our platform is built to help imaginations thrive. This is doubly true of the teams that make TikTok possible.
Together, we inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we all believe in and aim towards achieving every day.
To us, every challenge, no matter how difficult, is an opportunity; to learn, to innovate, and to grow as one team. Status quo? Never. Courage? Always.
At TikTok, we create together and grow together. That's how we drive impact - for ourselves, our company, and the communities we serve.
Join us.

Team Intro
We are seeking an experienced Data Scientist to join the Risk and Response - Detection and Automation Team within US Trust & Safety (T&S). TikTok T&S helps ensure that our global community is safe and empowered to create and enjoy content across all of our applications.
As a Data Scientist on the Risk and Response - Detection and Automation Team, you will contribute to the discovery, investigation, and remediation of high harm issues and behavior on platform within our Detection Engineering Program. Detection Engineering focuses on the creation and maintenance of proactive logic to identify high harm content at scale to prevent harm to users and to the company. This role will work internally with the Automation Engineering pillar within the larger Detection and Automation team, and cross functionally with other Trust and Safety teams and Security teams. Examples of use-cases you will help to develop include finding high harm leakage in areas of youth safety, exploitation and abuse, and violent behaviors, just to name a few. Detections can take the form of SQL jobs, lightweight topic classification models, and even large language model solutions.

Our Automation and Detection team performs a critical function that supports our efforts to address objectionable or disturbing content. Content that this Data Scientist interacts with includes images, video, and text related to every-day life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child abuse; sexual assault; torture; bestiality; self-harm; suicide; and murder.

It is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis.

In order to enhance collaboration and cross-functional partnerships, among other things, at this time, our organization follows a hybrid work schedule that requires employees to work in the office 3 days a week, or as directed by their manager/department. We regularly review our hybrid work model, and the specific requirements may change at any time.

Responsibilities
- Improve consistency and efficiency throughout US Trust & Safety's Detection Engineering program by architecting and shipping high precision use-cases via SQL and different modeling strategies in Python.
- Work directly with stakeholders to inform, refine, and validate concepts. We ideate a majority of the work we develop, which means capturing need and maturing it from MVP to production.
- Work with cross functional teams globally to ensure alignment, collect feedback on detections, and deploy solutions to get cross functional adoption.
- Raise the effectiveness of tooling and detection solutions through metrics collection and insights.
- Provide mentorship and guidance for data analysts on the team.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree or industry equivalent work experience in Data Science, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics
- At least 3 years of industry experience as a Data Scientist or Machine Learning engineer
- Proficiency in SQL and Python
- Strong technical documentation and reporting skills
- Ability to handle confidential information with discretion

Preferred Qualifications
- Proficiency in other object oriented languages
- Experience working with development platforms such as Databricks and Jupyter Notebooks
- Working knowledge of cloud platforms (i.e. OCI, GCP, AWS, etc)
- Experience evaluating, training, and inferencing with Machine Learning Models and tools
- Experience working in a Trust and Safety team
- Knowledge of social media processes and products, as well as current gaps that can be exploited by threat actors
- You stay up to date on online deceptive and manipulative behavior. You have a working knowledge of the signals of specific threat actors, their cross-platform tactics, and how they evolve or change over time
- Your ability to work in a high tempo environment, adapt, respond to day-to-day challenges of the role
- Your resilience and commitment to self-care to manage the emotional demands of the role

Wellbeing Statement
Trust & Safety recognizes that keeping our platform safe for TikTok communities is no ordinary job. It can be rewarding, psychologically demanding, and emotionally taxing. This is why we are sharing the potential hazards, risks and implications in this unique line of work from the start: so our candidates are well informed before proceeding.

We are committed to the wellbeing of all our employees and promise to provide comprehensive and evidence-based programs, to promote and support physical and mental wellbeing throughout each employee's journey with us. We believe that wellbeing is a relationship and that everyone has a part to play, so we work in collaboration and consultation with our employees and across our functions in order to ensure a truly person-centred, innovative and integrated approach.

D&I Statement
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.

Accommodation Statement
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://shorturl.at/ktJP6

Data Security Statement
This role requires the ability to work with and support systems designed to protect sensitive data and information. As such, this role will be subject to strict national security-related screening.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $108300 - $228000 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;

2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and

3. Exercising sound judgment.