Real-Time Media Network Engineer

TikTok Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 317,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Short-term and long-term disability

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

Paid holidays

Paid sick days

Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok’s Media Network team is building an industry-leading real-time media distributed system powering live streaming and RTC at scale. We serve billions of users worldwide from a team with global reach.

Join us to design high-performance media servers, optimize delivery, and advance protocols while leveraging AI to boost flexibility and latency performance in a resilient, decoupled architecture.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Hands-on experience with streaming transport protocols such as RTP/RTCP, RTMP, DASH, and CMAF.
• Familiarity with audio and video codec standards, including OPUS, AAC, and H.264.
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, NAT, IPv4/IPv6, routing protocols, and packet processing (iptables, deep packet inspection).
• Proficiency in at least one programming language: C, C++, Java, Python, Rust, or Go.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement high-performance, latency-sensitive media servers.
• Optimize network efficiency for media delivery, balancing cost and quality.
• Design, implement, and optimize media protocols, while staying current with industry trends.
• Leverage AI technologies to enhance streaming media scenarios and improve the flexibility and performance of the Media Network.
• Design and build resilient, decoupled systems to minimize single points of failure and improve overall reliability.

Skills

C/C++

Java

Python

Rust

Go

RTP/RTCP

RTMP

DASH

CMAF

Networking fundamentals

Real-time media systems

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Tools

CDN

WebRTC

Live streaming systems

Multimedia protocols

Job description

TikTok’s Media Network team is building an industry-leading real-time media distributed system powering live streaming and RTC at scale. We serve billions of users worldwide from a team with global reach.

Join us to design high-performance media servers, optimize delivery, and advance protocols while leveraging AI to boost flexibility and latency performance in a resilient, decoupled architecture.