Senior ML Engineer: Generative Recs & Foundation Models

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 187,000 - 438,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is recruiting for a research/engineer role focused on building next-generation recommendation intelligence. You will work on unified Foundation Models for multi-business scenarios, bridging retrieval, ranking, re-ranking, and generative capabilities to advance intelligent agents.

The team emphasizes open hypothesis validation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and rapid iteration to redefine the future of recommender systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/ML or related field.
• 3+ years in ML, DL, or information retrieval.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch.
• Self-driven research mindset and passion for intelligent recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Build and optimize cross-scenario shared Foundation Models to enable unified modeling and efficient inference.
• Apply LLM technologies across retrieval, ranking, and re-ranking stages; participate in model training and inference optimization.
• Explore integration of LLMs/VLMs with recommendation systems to develop adaptive intelligent recommenders.
• Research end-to-end generative recommendation and system optimization methods balancing efficiency and user experience.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Machine Learning

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field

PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field

Job description

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is recruiting for a research/engineer role focused on building next-generation recommendation intelligence. You will work on unified Foundation Models for multi-business scenarios, bridging retrieval, ranking, re-ranking, and generative capabilities to advance intelligent agents.

The team emphasizes open hypothesis validation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and rapid iteration to redefine the future of recommender systems.