Research Scientist Intern (Trust and Safety - CV/NLP/Multimodal LLM) - 2027 Start (PhD)

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 68,000 - 97,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid holidays

Housing allowance

Campus internship benefits

Job summary

TikTok invites a PhD internship candidate to join the algorithm research team in San Jose, working onsite to advance state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP, and multimodality models for content understanding and safety. You will explore modern models and LLM applications, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and contribute to hands-on research, prototyping, and experiments that drive product impact.

This paid campus internship includes health insurance, holidays, and housing allowance where

Qualifications

• PhD candidate in computer science or a related technical discipline.
• Related Research Experience in computer vision, multimodality, or LLM.
• Proficient with at least one deep learning framework (PyTorch or TensorFlow).
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and collaborative skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop computer vision or multimodality models to recognize violation content in TikTok.
• Explore cutting-edge multimodal or computer vision large models (CLIP, COCA, ALBEF, BLIP, Flamingo, ViT-G, ViT-22B, EVA-enormous, etc.).
• Explore the application of LLMs in business scenarios (pre-training, zero-shot/few-shot, hard case mining).
• Continuously optimize the training framework for large models.

Skills

Deep learning

Research experience

PyTorch/TensorFlow

Communication & collaboration

Education

PhD candidate in CS or related

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Responsibilities The algorithm team is responsible for developing state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodality models and algorithms to protect our platform and users from the content and behaviors that violate community guidelines and related regulations. With the continuous efforts from our team, TikTok is able to provide the best user experience and bring joy to everyone in the world.

Responsibilities The algorithm team is responsible for developing state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodality models and algorithms to protect our platform and users from the content and behaviors that violate community guidelines and related regulations. With the continuous efforts from our team, TikTok is able to provide the best user experience and bring joy to everyone in the world.

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.

• Develop computer vision model or multimodality model to recognize violation content in TikTok
• Explore cutting‑edge multimodal or computer vision large models (CLIP, COCA, ALBEF, BLIP, Flamingo, ViT-G, ViT-22B, EVA-enormous, etc)
• Explore the application of LLM in our business scenarios, like pre-training, zero-shot/ few-shot learning, hard case mining, etc
• Continuously optimize the training framework to better adapt to the training of large models

Qualifications Minimum Qualifications:

• PhD candidate in computer science or a related technical discipline
• Related Research Experience at least one of the following areas: computer vision, multimodality, LLM
• Be proficient with at least one deep learning framework (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Have excellent analytical and problem‑solving skills, logical thinking skills, communication and collaboration skills

Preferred Qualifications Published papers in the top AI conferences or journals is a plus, including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NIPS, ICML, ICLR, TPAMI, IJCV, etc

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

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:

• 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; and
• 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