Researcher Intern (Vision and Graphics) - 2026 Start (PhD)

TikTok Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 41,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok Inc. is seeking PhD internships in computer vision and machine learning for Summer 2026 in California. Internships offer hands-on experience and exposure to cutting-edge research while contributing to real products.

Join one of our engineering teams to work on CV/ML projects, with mentorship and opportunities to publish and impact TikTok scale. Applicants should be pursuing a PhD in CS or a related field and demonstrate strong research credentials.

Qualifications

• Minimum qualifications: 12 weeks of commitment during Summer 2026; PhD in CS or related field; strong track record in CV/graphics and ML; highly competent in algorithms and programming; ability to collaborate and work independently.
• Preferred qualifications: software engineering experience from prior internship/work, coding competitions, or publications; high creativity and rapid problem-solving capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Join an engineering team to build features that impact hundreds of millions globally.
• Tackle large-scale, complex technical problems in vision, ML and related fields.
• Collaborate with Research Scientists to advance TikTok products.
• Contribute to performance, usability, and maintainability of web/AI features.
• Work with mentors to deliver features and engineering improvements.
• Pursue cutting-edge research and development in CV, ML and related areas.

Skills

Algorithms

Programming

Research

Teamwork

Independent work

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related

Job description

Responsibilities

Our team's mission is to empower content interaction and creation using CV related technologies. We focus on cutting-edge R&D in areas like video understanding, multimodal understanding, image and video synthesis, 3D vision and intelligent editing. We are looking for Research Interns in the area of computer vision and machine learning at all levels at TikTok.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. Internships at TikTok aim to offer students industry exposure and hands‑on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at TikTok.

PhD

PhD internships at TikTok provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands‑on learning, enriching community‑building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

Responsibilities

This internship provides students the opportunity to join one of our engineering teams where you will have the opportunity to:

• Build new features that touch hundreds of millions of people around the world
• Solve unique, large-scale, highly complex technical problems
• Build the next‑generation monetization platform to help millions of customers grow their businesses
• Work with your mentor to deliver product features and make engineering improvements
• Build world‑class web applications that combine usability, accessibility, elegance, performance, and maintainability
• Conduct cutting‑edge research and development in computer vision, machine learning and other related fields
• Work with Research Scientists to deliver advanced technologies to TikTok products

Responsibilities

Our team's mission is to empower content interaction and creation using CV related technologies. We focus on cutting‑edge R&D in areas like video understanding, multimodal understanding, image and video synthesis, 3D vision and intelligent editing. We are looking for Research Interns in the area of computer vision and machine learning at all levels at TikTok.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. Internships at TikTok aim to offer students industry exposure and hands‑on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at TikTok.

PhD

PhD internships at TikTok provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands‑on learning, enriching community‑building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

Responsibilities

This internship provides students the opportunity to join one of our engineering teams where you will have the opportunity to:

• Build new features that touch hundreds of millions of people around the world
• Solve unique, large-scale, highly complex technical problems
• Build the next‑generation monetization platform to help millions of customers grow their businesses
• Work with your mentor to deliver product features and make engineering improvements
• Build world‑class web applications that combine usability, accessibility, elegance, performance, and maintainability
• Conduct cutting‑edge research and development in computer vision, machine learning and other related fields
• Work with Research Scientists to deliver advanced technologies to TikTok products

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026
• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
• Strong track record of research in one or more areas of computer vision, computer graphics and machine learning, preferring candidates with publications in top‑tier venues such as SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR.
• Highly competent in algorithms and programming.
• Work and collaborate well with team members.
• Ability to work independently.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated software engineering experience from previous internship, work experience, coding competitions, or publications.
• High levels of creativity and quick problem‑solving capabilities.