Machine Learning Engineer, TikTok - Business Governance San Jose Technology - Algorithm Regular

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

Parental leave

Disability coverage

Wellbeing benefits

10 paid holidays per year

10 paid sick days per year

17 days of Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer, Business Governance, to build trust and safety systems in a fast-paced environment in San Jose. You will work on multimodal content understanding, risk detection, and scalable moderation using cutting-edge AI tech and large models.

You will own training and deployment of LLMs/MLLMs, applying post-training techniques like SFT and RLHF, while collaborating with cross‑functional teams to deliver robust safety solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree or above in CS, software engineering, AI, math, or related fields.
• Strong understanding of ML/DL, transformers, LLMs and MLLMs.
• Hands-on Python and PyTorch with distributed training experience.
• Proven ability to solve complex problems in cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Develop content safety algorithms for TikTok, Lemon8 and short-form platforms across multimodal data.
• Leverage ML/DL and large-model tech to improve moderation pipelines and robustness.
• Own training and application of LLMs/MLLMs for content safety use cases, incl. SFT, RLHF, DPO, safety alignment.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Distributed training

ML/DL concepts

Transformer architectures

LLMs / MLLMs

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree or above in CS, SWE, AI, Math, or related fields

Tools

Data processing

Job description

Machine Learning Engineer, TikTok - Business Governance

Location

San Jose

Employment Type

Regular

Job Code

A82932A

Responsibilities

- About the TeamWe are building next-generation Trust & Safety systems powered by large language models and multimodal foundation models to protect TikTok, Lemon8, and short-form video platforms. Our team focuses on multimodal reasoning, content understanding, and large-scale risk detection across text, image, audio, and video. We actively explore and productionize cutting-edge technologies such as LLM post-training, multimodal models, and AI Agents to build intelligent, scalable, and adaptive content moderation systems.- Responsibilities - What You'II Do- Develop content safety algorithms for TikTok, Lemon8, and short-form drama platforms, covering multimodal understanding and risk detection across video, text, image, and audio- Leverage machine learning, deep learning, and large model technologies to improve content moderation pipelines, enhance operational efficiency, and ensure model robustness and production stability- Own the training and application of LLMs and MLLMs for content safety use cases, including post-training techniques such as SFT, RLHF, DPO, and safety alignment- Drive the exploration and productionization of emerging capabilities such as AI Agents, multimodal reasoning, and video understanding to build next-generation intelligent moderation systems

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, or related fields
• Strong understanding of machine learning and deep learning, with familiarity with Transformer architectures, LLMs, and MLLMs
• Hands-on experience in Python, PyTorch, distributed training, and large-scale data processing, with solid algorithmic and engineering capabilities
• Proven ability to solve complex problems and collaborate effectively in cross-functional teams, with a track record of driving projects to high-quality execution

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with LLM post-training, multimodal understanding, AI Agents, or Trust & Safety systems is desirable
• Publications in academic conferences such as NeurIPS、ICML、ICLR、CVPR、ECCV、ICCV、ACL、EMNLP、NAACL、Interspeech、ICASSP, and others are a strong plus

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. 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.

Legal and Equal Opportunity Statements

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

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