LLM & Agentic AI Machine Learning Software Engineer, TikTok - Content Ecology Local Services

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 388,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

401(k) plan

Parental leave

Disability coverage

Life insurance

wellbeing benefits

Job summary

TikTok is seeking an LLM & Agentic AI Machine Learning Software Engineer for the Content Ecology Local Services team in San Jose. You will advance AI capabilities, build semantic representations, and optimize end-to-end intelligent transactions for a global user base.

Responsibilities include driving core algorithms, enhancing multilingual multimodal understanding, and translating cutting-edge research into scalable, production-grade solutions while collaborating across teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, AI, or related field.
• Strong foundations in machine learning/deep learning, Transformer models, LLMs and multimodal learning.
• Experience in NLP, CV, multimodal understanding, AI agents, or knowledge graphs.
• Proficiency in Python, PyTorch, distributed training and large-scale data processing.
• Ability to translate research into production systems and drive impact.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration and communication.

Responsibilities

• Develop core algorithms for TikTok Local Services using LLMs/Agentic AI and NLP.
• Build representations and knowledge graphs for content, products, and user intents.
• Improve both supply- and demand-side experiences to boost transaction conversions.
• Tackle multilingual, multimodal, and dynamic data challenges in production.
• Translate research advances into scalable, production-grade solutions.

Skills

LLMs/MLLMs

NLP

Multimodal

Agentic AI

Python

PyTorch

Distributed training

Content graphs

Decision optimization

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/AI

Tools

Python

PyTorch

Big data processing

Job description

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 TikTok

Algorithm

LLM & Agentic AI Machine Learning Software Engineer, TikTok - Content Ecology Local Services

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A100616A

Responsibilities

About the TeamThe Content Ecology Algorithm Team drives TikTok's AI innovations in LLMs/MLLMs, NLP, Computer Vision, Multimodal learning, Agentic AI, and recommendation algorithms. We develop cutting-edge AI capabilities that power multiple business lines.You will tackle unique algorithm challenges in building products for a global audience. Our platform's diverse content and worldwide user base create a wealth of opportunities for AI applications. With rapidly growing businesses such as TikTok Local Services, you'll have the chance to bring cutting-edge AI innovations into real-world production.

• Drive the research and development of core algorithms for TikTok Local Services, leveraging LLMs/MLLMs, Agentic AI, NLP, Computer Vision, conversion modeling, global optimization, and causal uplift modeling.
• Develop deep semantic representations and structured models of content, products, and user intent, while building foundational capabilities across product knowledge graphs, intent understanding, and end-to-end intelligent transaction optimization.
• Continuously enhance both supply- and demand-side experiences to drive sustainable growth in transaction conversion.
• Tackle frontier technical challenges unique to local services, including multilingual and multimodal understanding, highly dynamic environments, and long-horizon sequential decision-making.
• Stay at the forefront of research, translate state-of-the-art advances into production-grade solutions, scale proven innovations, and establish reusable algorithmic foundations with broad applicability.

Qualifications

• Minimum Qualifications- Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering or a related technical field.
• Strong foundations in machine learning and deep learning, with a solid understanding of Transformer architectures, LLMs, multimodal large language models, and modern representation learning techniques.
• Experience in one or more relevant areas, such as NLP, computer vision, multimodal understanding, AI agents, knowledge graphs, retrieval and recommendation, conversion modeling, causal uplift modeling, or decision optimization.
• Hands-on experience with Python, PyTorch, distributed model training, and large-scale data processing, with strong algorithmic, software engineering, and production deployment capabilities.
• Proven ability to formulate and solve complex, ambiguous problems, translate research advances into scalable production solutions, and deliver measurable business impact.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills, with a track record of driving technically complex projects to high-quality execution.
• Preferred Qualifications- Experience building large-scale machine learning systems for e-commerce, recommendation, search, advertising, marketplaces or other transaction-oriented products.
• Experience working with multilingual, multimodal, or highly dynamic data and deploying models in large-scale production environments.
• Publications at leading conferences, such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, KDD, WWW, SIGIR, RecSys, AAAI, Interspeech, or ICASSP.
• Demonstrated technical leadership through driving cross-functional initiatives, establishing reusable algorithmic capabilities, or mentoring engineers and researchers.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $387600 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

• 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.

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;
• 3. 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