Software Engineer, Inference Optimization - Trust and Safety

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.

The Trust and Safety(TnS) engineering team is responsible for protecting our users from harmful content and abusive behaviors. With the continuous efforts of our trust and safety engineering team, TikTok can provide the best user experience and bring joy to everyone in the world. Our team is responsible for achieving goals by building content moderation process systems, rule engine, strategy systems, feature engine, human moderation platforms, risk insight systems and all kinds of supportive platforms across TnS organization.

Responsibilities:
- Work closely with business teams to optimize the integration plan for algorithm applications, improve efficiency in evaluating and using algorithm applications across various business scenarios, and reduce the cost of managing and optimizing algorithm applications in different business scenarios.
- Responsible for the architectural design, development, and performance tuning of algorithm applications, solving technical challenges such as high concurrency, high reliability, and high scalability. Work includes multiple sub-areas: ML model training and evaluation, model optimization, model inference, model management, dataset management, workflow orchestration, etc.
- Responsible for the design and development of Machine Learning infrastructure for LLM/AIGC, etc
- Responsible for researching and implementing cutting-edge engineering technologies related to LLM, NLP, CV.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification
- Familiar with one or two programming languages, such as C++, Go, or Python, and knowledgeable about CUDA or deep learning frameworks (such as PyTorch, Deepspeed, Megatron, vllm, etc.).
- Understanding of the principles of distributed systems, large-scale data processing, and parallel computing
- Interested and experienced in one or more of the following areas: machine learning, deep learning, computational acceleration, and performance optimization.
- Familiar with the ML Infrastructure of Large Model training and inference

Preferred Qualifications
- Excellent programming skills, data structure and algorithm skills, proficient in C/C++ or Python programming language, candidates with awards in ACM/ICPC, NOI/IOI, Top Coder, Kaggle and other competitions are preferred.
- Research or industry experience in the field of machine learning, especially in large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence.
- Distributed training framework optimizations such as DeepSpeed, FSDP, Megatron, GSPMD
- Experiences in in-depth CUDA programming and performance tuning (cutlass, triton)
- Experience with evaluation of ML models, LLM application & agent development is desirable.
- Understanding cutting-edge LLM research and engineering (e.g., long context, multi modality, active learning, alignment research, agent ecosystem, etc.) and possess practical expertise in effectively implementing these advanced systems.

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

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

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