Research Scientist Intern (Data-TnS-Algo-Foundations & Intelligence Service) - 2027 Start (PhD)[...]

TikTok; San Jose, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; 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

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 TikTok

Algorithm

Research Scientist Intern (Data-TnS-Algo-Foundations & Intelligence Service) - 2027 Start (PhD)

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Intern

Job Code:

A33940

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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.We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. 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.Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts.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).
• Pretraining & Continued Pretraining (CPT): Explore and develop approaches that improve general capability and safety for LLMs and VLMs via pretraining/CPT.
• Evaluation & Measurement: Build advanced evaluation systems to study emerging LLM/VLM skills and safety behaviors, aligned with real downstream use.
• Post-Training & RL: Develop advanced reinforcement-learning strategies (e.g., RLHF/RLAIF/DPO variants), and investigate how to balance pretraining and post-training for better capability and safety alignment.
• Scaffolded Settings & Agents: Probe new failure modes and pitfalls in scaffolded environments (agents, workflows, tool use), and translate insights into robust mitigations.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Currently pursuing an 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• Publications in top AI or Security venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, COLM, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, NDSS).

By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://careers.tiktok.com/legal/privacy

Job Information

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $60- $60.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

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