Software Engineer - Content Understanding, TikTok Feeds

TikTok Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 388,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok Inc. is seeking an engineer to join the Feeds Recommendation Architecture team in California.

You will contribute to the design, development, and optimization of TikTok's For You Feed recommender system, focusing on scalable infrastructure and efficient data processing. The role requires solid programming foundations in Python/Go/C++ and strong backend skills, with collaboration across teams on testing, deployment, monitoring, and root-cause analysis.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Solid programming and algorithm foundations; proficient in Python, Go, C++, or other programming languages.
• Strong backend development skills, including storage, service orchestration, caching, and concurrency.
• Good product sense, strong problem-solving skills, and excellent teamwork and communication abilities.
• Knowledge of machine learning and familiarity with a mainstream framework (TensorFlow or PyTorch).
• Experience in designing high-traffic service architectures or working with distributed computing.

Responsibilities

• Participate in the engineering architecture requirement alignment, design, and implementation for various scenarios related to TikTok content understanding.
• Contribute to improving R&D efficiency across content understanding scenarios, including testing, deployment, monitoring, and root cause analysis.
• Responsible for optimizing system stability, performance, and scalability across different scenarios.

Skills

Python

Go

C++

Algorithms

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Git

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team: The TikTok Feeds Recommendation Architecture team is responsible for the design and development of TikTok's For You Feed recommendation system. Our scope spans the entire online and offline recommendation pipeline, including strategy, modeling, and data infrastructure. We build scalable and efficient infrastructure to support rapid algorithm iteration, tackle massive throughput challenges, and enhance system performance, cost-efficiency, and stability. Our mission is to abstract and generalize core infrastructure services, components, and productivity tools that empower the recommendation system at scale.

Responsibilities – What You'll Do

• Participate in the engineering architecture requirement alignment, design, and implementation for various scenarios related to TikTok content understanding.
• Contribute to improving R&D efficiency across content understanding scenarios, including but not limited to testing, deployment, monitoring, and root cause analysis.
• Responsible for optimizing system stability, performance, and scalability across different scenarios.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Solid programming and algorithm foundations; proficient in Python, Go, C++, or other programming languages.
• Strong backend development skills, including but not limited to storage, service orchestration, caching, and concurrency.
• Good product sense, strong problem-solving skills, and excellent teamwork and communication abilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of machine learning and familiarity with at least one mainstream machine learning framework (e.g., TensorFlow or PyTorch).
• Experience in designing high-traffic service architectures or working extensively with distributed computing.

Job Information

For Pay Transparency: Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $387600 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.