Machine Learning Software Engineer Graduate (TikTok Content Ecology) - 2027 Start (PhD)

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 128,000 - 317,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Disability coverage

Wellbeing benefits

Job summary

TikTok is hiring for an AI/ML focused role in San Jose. The Content Ecology team builds AI-powered platforms to enhance content creation, understanding, discovery, and governance, using LLMs, multimodal learning, and agentic AI to impact users, creators, and merchants.

The candidate will work on scalable AI infrastructure, model and agent lifecycles, and cutting-edge systems like planning, tool use, and memory. A PhD and strong ML framework experience are highly valued.

Qualifications

• PhD completed or near completion in CS/EE/Math or related field.
• Strong programming and algorithmic skills in Python or C++.
• Deep understanding of NLP, CV, LLM/MLLM, Search, or Agentic AI.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build standardized, configurable, and reusable pipelines for the entire lifecycle of models and agents—from data processing and training to deployment, monitoring, and governance.
• Partner with algorithm teams to understand their needs and provide an infrastructure platform that accelerates R&D cycles.
• Build robust observability and evaluation frameworks to ensure reproducibility, reliability, and cost-efficiency of AI workloads at scale.
• Design and implement core platform infrastructure, including model/agent registries, feature stores, and high-throughput retrieval/RAG systems.
• Design, build, and optimize advanced Agentic AI systems, focusing on planning, tool use, and memory.

Skills

Python

C++

NLP/LLM/Agentic AI

TensorFlow/PyTorch

Communication skills

Education

PhD in computer science or related

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 TikTok

Algorithm

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A111471

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About the Team

The Content Ecology team develops AI-powered products and platform capabilities that enhance how content is created, understood, discovered, and governed across TikTok. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as large language models (LLMs), multimodal learning, and agentic AI, the team addresses complex challenges across Local Services, Search, intelligent customer service, creator understanding, and AI-assisted content creation. By combining business-focused product innovation with scalable AI platform development, the team delivers impactful solutions that improve experiences for users, creators, and merchants while advancing frontier AI capabilities at global scale.We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth.Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build standardized, configurable, and reusable pipelines for the entire lifecycle of models and agents—from data processing and training to deployment, monitoring, and governance.
• Partner with algorithm teams to understand their needs and provide a world-class infrastructure platform that accelerates their research and development cycles.
• Build robust observability and evaluation frameworks to ensure the reproducibility, reliability, and cost-efficiency of AI workloads at scale.
• Design and implement core platform infrastructure, including model/agent registries, feature stores, and high-throughput retrieval/RAG systems.
• Design, build, and optimize advanced Agentic AI systems, focusing on core components like planning, tool use, and memory.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a PhD degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, or a related discipline.
• Experienced in programming and algorithmic skills, proficient in languages such as Python or C++.
• Deep understanding of one of the following areas: NLP (Natural Language Processing), CV (Computer Vision), LLM (Large Language Models)/MLLM (Multimodal Language Models), Search, or Agentic AI.
• Experienced in one or more of the following topics: TensorFlow, PyTorch, or other machine learning frameworks.
• Good team communication and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in building ML model development for large-scale consumer-facing applications.
• Experience or domain expertise in one or more of the following areas is preferred: NLP, CV, LLM/MLLM, Agentic LLMs, Dialog Systems, Search, Recommendation Systems, or Creator Modeling.
• Published papers or hands-on project experience in the fields of NLP, CV, agent-based systems, or multimodal technologies.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $128000 - $316800 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:

• 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