Machine Learning Engineer, Content Understanding

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

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Disability coverage

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

10 holidays per year

10 paid sick days per year

17 days Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok is hiring for a seasoned ML engineer to advance large-scale advertising systems and multimodal content understanding. You will own critical targeting components within the ads monetization pipeline and work closely with product and business teams to align on vision and strategy.

You will apply deep learning techniques using PyTorch or TensorFlow, and collaborate with global teams to drive high-performance, scalable solutions in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Experience in and strong grounding in machine learning concepts and techniques.
• Proven experience in multimodal content understanding, with expertise in large language models (LLMs).
• Strong foundation in at least one major deep learning framework (PyTorch or TensorFlow).
• Proactive mindset, ownership, excellent communication, and cross-team collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Participate in development of a large-scale Ads system.
• Develop state-of-the-art applied machine learning projects.
• Own key targeting components in TikTok ads monetization ecosystem.
• Collaborate with product and business teams on product vision.

Skills

ML concepts

Multimodal understanding

LLMs familiarity

Ownership & collaboration

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Responsibilities

TikTok's immersive experience, global presence, and high engagement makes it the ideal destination for brands, big and small, to showcase their unique identity, connect with their consumers, and build strong lasting relationships over time. Our Brand Ads team focuses on enabling brands to grow and succeed on TikTok by creating cutting-edge monetization products that empowers users, creators, and advertisers.

The Brand Ads Team builds technologies that unlock business growth potential. This team owns several ads products: reservation ads, auction ads, and innovative content ads that enables advertisers and users to foster more awareness of their brand to attain their business goals. We work on the end-to-end ads delivery tech stack, including ads bidding, ranking, and forecasting.

We are looking for seasoned engineers that have strong problem solving skills and algorithm understanding to build and manage systems with high performance, scalability, and availability. You will have the opportunity to partner closely with a globalized engineering and product teams in a high-impact and fast-paced environment.

What You'll Do:

• Participate in the development of a large-scale Ads system.
• Responsible for the development of state-of-the-art applied machine learning projects.
• Own key targeting components or strategies in the TikTok ads monetization ecosystem.
• Work with product and business teams on product vision.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Experience in and good theoretical grounding in machine learning concepts and techniques.
• Proven experience in multimodal content understanding, with expertise in large language models (LLMs) and familiarity with cutting-edge progress in the field.
• Strong technical foundation in at least one major deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Proactive mindset, strong sense of ownership, excellent communication skills, and ability to collaborate across teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience deploying content understanding solutions in search, advertising, recommendation, or related domains.

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

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162,000 - $387,600 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:

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.