Site Reliability Engineer, AI Infrastructure

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 123,000 - 259,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is seeking an experienced Site Reliability Engineer to own production systems, drive observability, and build automation across a global, multi-region environment. The role emphasizes secure, compliant infrastructure and rapid growth with a strong emphasis on incident management and scalable, fault-tolerant services.

Ideal candidates will have hands-on SRE/DevOps experience, deep Linux and networking knowledge, and proficiency in Go or Python; familiarity with

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 1+ years of hands-on SRE, DevOps, or Systems Engineering experience managing large-scale, highly reliable systems.
• Strong foundation in Linux operating systems, internal system performance, and networking fundamentals.
• Experience programming in Go, Python, C/C++, or Java.
• Demonstrated experience in designing, troubleshooting, and maintaining complex distributed systems in dynamic production environments; modernize workflows via Bash/shell scripting.
• Familiarity with modern CI/CD practices and automated deployment pipelines.
• High resilience and ability to navigate ambiguity in restricted infrastructure environments.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams throughout the service lifecycle from design to deployment and operation.
• Build tools, platforms, and automation to improve reliability, scalability, R&D efficiency, and operational workflows.
• Ensure high availability and performance of large-scale, multi-region systems by monitoring health and latency.
• Lead complex infrastructure migrations and upgrades in a restricted compliance environment.
• Drive capacity management, resource allocation, stability optimization, and strict SLA/SLO adherence.
• Drive robust incident management, blameless postmortems, and systemic root-cause resolution.

Skills

Go

Python

C/C++

Java

Linux

Networking

Bash

CI/CD

Distributed systems

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

AWS

GCP

Azure

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team The USDS JV AI Infra SRE team works with engineering and product teams to build and run globally distributed, fault-tolerant systems for TikTok's state-of-the-art Recommendation and Search engines. SREs on this team will deliver on production ownership, driving observability and automation across complex service mesh architectures. Operating within a highly secure and strictly isolated USDS environment, our team is currently in a critical 0-to-1 infrastructure building phase. We are looking for resilient engineers who are comfortable navigating evolving toolsets and established workflows, eager to bridge the gap between existing systems and our rapid technological growth today to build the robust foundation and advanced agentic automation tools for tomorrow.

• Partner with cross-functional teams throughout the entire service lifecycle, from system design consulting and architecture reviews to deployment, operation, and continuous refinement, acting as a strong communicator to align engineering efforts during critical incidents and daily operations.
• Build tools, platforms, and automation to improve service reliability, scalability, R&D efficiency, and operational workflows, while maintaining a healthy balance between deep software development and daily operational duties .
• Ensure high availability and performance of large-scale, multi-region systems by proactively monitoring service health, latency, and key metrics.
• Lead complex infrastructure migrations and system architecture upgrades in a highly restricted compliance environment.
• Drive robust Capacity Management, including resource allocation, stability optimization, and error attribution, while ensuring strict SLA/SLO compliance.
• Drive sustainable incident management, blameless postmortems, and systemic root-cause resolution.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 1+ years of hands-on SRE, DevOps, or Systems Engineering experience managing large-scale, highly reliable systems.
• Strong foundation in Linux operating systems, internal system performance, and networking fundamentals.
• Experience programming in at least one standard language: Go, Python, C/C++, or Java.
• Demonstrated experience in designing, troubleshooting, and maintaining complex distributed systems, with a proven ability to navigate highly dynamic production environments, troubleshoot high-complexity traffic issues, and modernize operational workflows via Bash/shell scripting.
• Familiarity with modern CI/CD practices and automated deployment pipelines.
• High resilience and a strong 'system sense' to navigate ambiguity and break down complex, real-world problems. You should thrive in developing or restricted infrastructure environments, turning these constraints into a unique opportunity to pioneer standard developer tools from the ground up.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes) and service mesh architectures.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform).
• Experience with modern observability tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Distributed Tracing).
• Track record of identifying opportunities to streamline manual operations and successfully designing/coding self-serve tools or automation to eliminate them.
• Interest or experience in leveraging LLMs, Agentic AI, or advanced machine learning concepts to enhance operational efficiency, automate troubleshooting, or build next-generation infra tooling.
• Strong technical curiosity and adaptability, with a proven track record of navigating evolving tech stacks and embracing new technical challenges.
• Experience with designing and building distributed systems and/or infrastructure is a strong plus.

About USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.

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.

USDS Reasonable Accommodation

USDS 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/USDS-RA

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $122574 - $259200 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

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;
• 3. Exercising sound judgment.