PhD Research Scientist Intern: AI Safety & Foundations

TikTok; San Jose, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 68,000 - 97,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Housing allowance

Paid holidays

Job summary

TikTok is offering a Research Scientist Intern position in San Jose for a PhD student eager to advance AI safety and foundation-model research with LLMs and multimodal capabilities. This internship emphasizes hands-on work, collaboration with seasoned researchers, and contribution to cutting-edge projects.

Start in 2027, with a strong focus on responsible AI development. Applicants should be pursuing a PhD in CS or related field, have published or shown research in AI safety or related domains,

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• Research experience in at least one of: LLMs, AI Safety, Computer Vision, Multimodality.
• Actively track recent AI-safety developments (familiar with current papers, benchmarks, and terminology).
• Proficient with at least one deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Excellent analytical/problem-solving ability, clear logical thinking, and strong communication/collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Foundations & Intelligence Service, Trust & Safety is TikTok’s foundation-model team responsible for core development and research that push the boundaries of our LLM and VLM capabilities—with trustworthiness and safety built in from day one.
• Our work enables product teams and customers to adopt advanced AI smoothly and responsibly, with safety woven into the model stack rather than bolted on.
• PhD internships at Our Company provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, as well as to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early. Please clearly state your availability in your resume (Start date, End date).

Skills

PhD candidate

AI safety research

LLMs

PyTorch

Strong communication

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

TikTok is offering a Research Scientist Intern position in San Jose for a PhD student eager to advance AI safety and foundation-model research with LLMs and multimodal capabilities. This internship emphasizes hands-on work, collaboration with seasoned researchers, and contribution to cutting-edge projects.

Start in 2027, with a strong focus on responsible AI development. Applicants should be pursuing a PhD in CS or related field, have published or shown research in AI safety or related domains,