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.

We are a pioneering Machine Learning Engineering team at TikTok, committed to spearheading innovation in leveraging cutting-edge technologies in foundation models (eg. Large Language Models, LLM) to enhance TikTok's experience. The mission of our team is to bridge the gap between state-of-the-art AI techniques and seamless user experience. Our team culture cherishes the "First Principles Thinking" approach, and we deeply value understanding things at their core and focusing on delivering solid, well-grounded solutions.

We are looking for talented research scientists to join our team in 2025, who are excited about growing their business understanding, building scalable and high-performance models and systems, and partnering across disciplines with global teams, in pursuit of excellence.

Responsibilities
1. Deploy, prompt, and optimize cutting-edge foundation models (eg. Large Language Models, LLM).
2. Apply foundation models to enhance and optimize TikTok's recommendation system and product offerings, improving the experience of billion-scale consumers and creators.
3. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product managers, data scientists, and product engineers, to form and solve problems, refine machine learning algorithms, and communicate results.
4. Regularly run A/B tests, perform analyses, and iterate algorithms based on results.
5. Work with infrastructure teams on improving the efficiency and stability of machine learning systems.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:
1. PhD degree in the field of computer science or a related technical discipline
2. Hands-on experience in one or more of the following areas: Large Language Models (LLM), Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Recommender Systems, Data Mining, or Natural Language Processing
3. Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++, and a deep understanding of data structures and algorithms
4. Familiar with architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet)
5. Excellent communication and teamwork skills, and a passion for learning new techniques and tackling challenging problems

Preferred Qualifications:
1. Prior research/industry experience with deploying, prompting, and fine-tuning foundation models
2. Prior research/industry experience with applied machine learning, or large-scale recommendation systems
3. Publications at major AI-related conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, IJCAI, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, KDD, ICDM, SDM, RecSys, or simply on arXiv but with large impact
4. Strong track record in AI-related competitions, or participation in public/open-source AI-related projects of high visibility

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.

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/cdpT2

By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://careers.tiktok.com/legal/privacy.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $137750 - $237500 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.