Software Architect - Open Platform

TikTok; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok is seeking a Senior Platform Architect to lead end-to-end architecture across Open Platform domains, API platforms, and developer experience. You will mentor engineers, drive scalability, reliability, and security across multi-region systems.

Responsibilities include setting technical strategy, overseeing design reviews, and aligning cross-functional teams across regions to deliver high-availability platform services for partners and developers worldwide.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in software engineering with ownership of system architecture for large-scale distributed systems or platform products.
• Proven experience designing and evolving service-oriented / microservice architectures, including high availability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization.
• Strong understanding of API architecture (REST/gRPC), authentication/authorization, rate limiting, versioning, developer experience, and platform governance.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems fundamentals: consistency, concurrency, caching, messaging/streaming, and multi-region resilience.
• Hands-on ability to produce high-quality technical designs and influence implementation; comfortable diving into code when needed.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the end-to-end architecture for key Open Platform domains, including API platforms, partner integration frameworks, developer experience, and core platform services.
• Set technical strategy and architecture standards (service design, data models, API design, scalability, observability, reliability, security) across multiple teams and systems.
• Lead design reviews and align stakeholders across product engineering, infrastructure, security, and compliance teams in multiple regions.
• Identify scalability and reliability bottlenecks; design long-term solutions for high-traffic, low-latency, globally distributed systems.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers; raise the bar for engineering quality, documentation, and operational excellence.
• Evaluate new technologies and guide pragmatic adoption (e.g., platform frameworks, cloud patterns, distributed data systems).
• Drive cross-team execution for large initiatives: architecture roadmap, risk management, and delivery governance.

Skills

System architecture

Microservices

API design (REST/gRPC)

Distributed systems

Security & compliance

Code review & mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in software engineering

Job description

Responsibilities

The TikTok Open Platform team is on a mission to build a platform that bridges content, people and business in TikTok ecosystem. The team focuses on building cross-platform features for both developers and TikTok users, including APIs, SDKs, and InApp services. The platform will enable more interactions across TikTok and its broader ecosystem, enhancing cross-product business values.

Responsibilities:

• Define and drive the end-to-end architecture for key Open Platform domains, including API platforms, partner integration frameworks, developer experience, and core platform services.
• Set technical strategy and architecture standards (service design, data models, API design, scalability, observability, reliability, security) across multiple teams and systems.
• Lead design reviews and align stakeholders across product engineering, infrastructure, security, and compliance teams in multiple regions.
• Identify scalability and reliability bottlenecks; design long-term solutions for high-traffic, low-latency, globally distributed systems.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers; raise the bar for engineering quality, documentation, and operational excellence.
• Evaluate new technologies and guide pragmatic adoption (e.g., platform frameworks, cloud patterns, distributed data systems).
• Drive cross-team execution for large initiatives: architecture roadmap, risk management, and delivery governance.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification(s)

• Bachelor's degree in software engineering experience, with significant ownership of system architecture for large-scale distributed systems or platform products.
• Proven experience designing and evolving service-oriented / microservice architectures, including high availability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization.
• Strong understanding of API architecture (REST/gRPC), authentication/authorization, rate limiting, versioning, developer experience, and platform governance.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems fundamentals: consistency, concurrency, caching, messaging/streaming, and multi-region resilience.
• Hands-on ability to produce high-quality technical designs and influence implementation; comfortable diving into code when needed.

Preferred Qualification(s)

• Excellent cross-functional communication skills; able to align diverse stakeholders and drive decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Demonstrated technical leadership: influencing without authority, mentoring, and raising engineering standards.
• Experience building developer platforms (public APIs, SDKs, documentation systems, partner onboarding, or integration ecosystems).
• Background in security and compliance for external-facing platforms (e.g., OAuth, data access governance, threat modeling, privacy controls).
• Experience operating global, multi-region systems and working with cross-time-zone teams.
• Familiarity with large-scale observability practices (metrics/logging/tracing), SRE principles, and incident response processes.

About TikTok

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.

Why Join Us

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.