Software Engineer Graduate (TikTok Search Data Infra) - 2027 Start

TikTok; San Jose, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 128,000 - 317,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok is hiring a Software Engineer Graduate for the TikTok Search Data Infra team in San Jose, with a 2027 start. You will help build and own query pipelines, data ingestion, and training data pipelines at massive scale.

Candidates pursuing a Bachelor's in CS or related field, with Java/C++/Python and experience in Spark, Flink, or Hive/Iceberg, are invited to apply. Onboarding by year-end is expected; applicants may apply to up to two roles.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related technical discipline.
• Strong programming skills in Java, C++, or Python.
• Production experience with data frameworks such as Spark, Flink, or Hive/Iceberg.
• Solid distributed systems fundamentals, and the ability to debug and optimize complex systems in production.

Responsibilities

• Build and own query/video pipelines — ingestion, enrichment, and streaming/batch index construction at billion-doc scale with near-real-time freshness.
• Develop the feature engineering platform: computation, backfill, storage, and serving, with strong online/offline consistency guarantees.
• Build streaming and batch sample pipelines that turn user actions and features into high-quality training data.
• Improve data quality, observability, and cost efficiency across PB-scale storage and compute.

Skills

Java

C++

Python

distributed systems

strong CS fundamentals

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Spark

Flink

Hive/Iceberg

Job description

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 TikTok

Software Engineer Graduate (TikTok Search Data Infra) - 2027 Start

Location

San Jose

Employment Type

Regular

Job Code

A259579

Responsibilities

About the TeamOur Search Engineering Team builds and owns TikTok's search engine, combining information retrieval with modern machine learning from NLP, CV, and recommender systems. We embrace a culture of self-direction, intellectual curiosity, openness, and problem-solving.The Data Infrastructure team owns the data layer: how billions of videos and articles are ingested and indexed, how features are computed and served, how petabytes of user actions and features become training data, and how long sequences are modeled. Every retrieval and ranking model in TikTok Search runs on data our systems produce.We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth.Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.Candidates can apply to a maximum of two positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to our Company and its affiliates' jobs globally.

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.

• Build and own query/video pipelines — ingestion, enrichment, and streaming/batch index construction at billion-doc scale with near-real-time freshness.
• Develop the feature engineering platform: computation, backfill, storage, and serving, with strong online/offline consistency guarantees.
• Build streaming and batch sample pipelines that turn user actions and features into high-quality training data.
• Improve data quality, observability, and cost efficiency across PB-scale storage and compute.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification(s)-

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
• Strong programming skills in Java, C++, or Python.
• Production experience with data frameworks such as Spark, Flink, or Hive/Iceberg.
• Solid distributed systems fundamentals, and the ability to debug and optimize complex systems in production.

Preferred Qualification(s)-

• Currently pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
• Experience with search, recommendation, or ads data infrastructure.
• Experience with feature stores and training sample pipelines.
• Familiarity with real-time indexing, inverted index, or embedding/vector retrieval pipelines.
• Experience using AI coding assistants and agents to improve day-to-day development productivity.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $128000 - $316800 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.

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.

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.

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.

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