(General Hire) Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Trust and Safety - CV/NLP/Multimodal LLM) - 20[...]

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 52,000 - 72,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

10 paid holidays per year

Paid sick time

Housing allowance

Job summary

TikTok is offering a campus internship in our California offices focused on building state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodal models for content safety. You will work on cutting-edge model development, training optimization, and evaluation in a collaborative team environment.

Ideal candidates are pursuing a Master in CS/ML with hands-on experience in PyTorch or TensorFlow, and a strong interest in risk identification within moderation workflows.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Master degree in computer science, machine learning, or a related field.
• Solid foundation in machine learning and deep learning; familiarity with multimodal modeling; hands-on with large model projects is a plus.
• Proficient in end-to-end algorithm development, including data processing, modeling, and evaluation; experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow is required.

Responsibilities

• Develop state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodal models and algorithms for content safety.
• Optimize distributed model training frameworks and contribute to scalable training pipelines.
• Collaborate with product and policy teams to deploy moderation algorithms in real-world settings.

Skills

ML basics

Deep learning

Multimodal modeling

End-to-end algorithm development

Education

Master degree in CS/ML or related

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Responsibilities

The algorithm team is responsible for developing state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodality models and algorithms to protect our platform and users from the content and behaviors that violate community guidelines and related regulations. With the continuous efforts from our team, TikTok is able to provide the best user experience and bring joy to everyone in the world.

In our team, you will have the opportunity to participate in the development of the cutting‑edge content understanding model to help improve the recognition ability of violated content in TikTok, and will also be responsible for optimizing our distributed model training framework continuously. We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. Our internship program offers students hands‑on experience, industry exposure, and opportunities to apply their knowledge to real‑world challenges while building a strong foundation for personal and professional growth. Interns will gain practical experience, explore potential career paths, and participate in social events, learning programs, and development workshops alongside industry professionals.

• Leverage multimodal large models to explore few‑shot and zero‑shot strategies for content safety scenarios, and build moderation models with strong generalization capabilities.
• Participate in reinforcement learning–based data mining, and help design Chain‑of‑Thought (CoT) annotation frameworks to improve the model’s understanding of complex risks.
• Build risk ranking and recall systems to enhance coverage and accuracy in identifying high‑risk content.
• Collaborate with product and policy teams to drive real‑world deployment and performance optimization of moderation algorithms.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a Master degree with a background in computer science, machine learning, or similar fields;
• Solid foundation in machine learning and deep learning; familiarity with multimodal modeling; hands‑on experience with large model projects is a plus.
• Interest in content safety, with an understanding of the challenges in risk identification within moderation workflows.
• Proficient in end‑to‑end algorithm development, including data processing, modeling, and evaluation; experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong learning ability, clear communication, and a strong sense of teamwork and responsibility.

Job Information

Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $45- $45.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location.

• Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more.
• Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year).
• Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

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:

• Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
• Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
• Exercising sound judgment.

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.

TikTok Accommodation

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