Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (Lead Ads) - 2027 Start

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 128,000 - 256,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

401(k) Match

Parental Leave

Disability Insurance

Life Insurance

Wellbeing Benefits

Paid Holidays

Paid Sick Days

Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok is hiring in San Jose for a Lead Ads role, delivering a billion-dollar ads business through large-scale systems and personalized advertising. You will help advance the ads delivery platform and lead innovations in optimization and relevance.

You will collaborate with product teams, push NLP and ML capabilities, and contribute to ranking, feature engineering, and pacing to improve performance. This role offers a competitive package and strong benefits.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or higher in CS, CE, or related technical field.
• Strong programming skills in Go, C/C++, Python; Linux experience.
• Solid knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and statistics.

Responsibilities

• Participate in development of large-scale Ads system.
• Optimize relevance models and ranking strategies (semantic matching, active learning, multimodal data).
• Develop Ads algorithms using Machine Learning.
• Improve NLP capabilities and query understanding (classification, seq2seq, NER, knowledge graphs).
• Work on CTR/CVR model accuracy, data analysis, feature engineering.
• Research and develop Ads pacing algorithms and traffic control.
• Partner with product teams to define strategy and features.

Skills

Go

C/C++

Python

Linux

Data structures

Algorithms

Statistics

ML fundamentals

NLP

TensorFlow

PyTorch

MXNet

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

MXNet

Job description

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 TikTok

Technology

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A07409A

Responsibilities

The Lead Ads team empowers TikTok's global monetization (billion-dollar business) via efficiently delivering lead ads on TikTok. Our mission is to push the boundaries of large-scale ads delivery systems and lead the innovations of TikTok's personalized online advertising.

• Participate in the development of a large-scale Ads system
• Responsible for relevance model and strategy optimization, such as semantic matching models, active learning, text/photo/video multi-model, ranking strategy, etc
• Participate in the development and iteration of Ads algorithms by using Machine Learning.
• Work on NLP (Natural Language Processing) capability improvement and query understanding, such as query classification, seq2seq, NER (Named Entity Recognition), knowledge graph, bidword optimization, etc
• Work on CTR/CVR model estimation accuracy, data analysis, modeling, feature engineering
• Research and develop Ads pacing algorithms, ads traffic control, etc
• Partner with product managers and product strategy & operation team to define product strategy and features

Qualifications

• Minimum Qualifications:
• Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a Bachelor's or above degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Solid programming skills, including but not limited to: Go, C/C++, Python. Familiar with basic data structure and algorithms. Familiar with Linux development environment.
• Good analytical thinking capability. Have essential knowledge and skills in statistics.
• Good theoretical grounding in the machine and deep learning concepts and techniques (CNN/RNN/LSTM, etc.).
• Familiar with the architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet), familiar with its architecture and implementation mechanism.
• Preferred Qualifications: Ads system, recommendation, searching, ranking, etc.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $128000 - $256000 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.

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