Software Engineer - TikTok AI Search Infrastructure

TikTok Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 254,000 - 588,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Parental leave

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

Paid holidays

Paid sick days

Paid personal time

Job summary

TikTok Inc. is seeking a lead for the AI Search Infra team in San Jose to architect and optimize scalable ML infrastructure serving billions of search requests daily.

You will drive multi-agent LLM engines, ReAct/tooling, and RAG workflows to deliver fast, accurate AI search experiences across Q&A, chat, and visual search. You will collaborate with modeling and product teams to push performance, efficiency, and reliability, while guiding distributed data systems, GPU-accelerated inference, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor or advanced degree in CS or related disciplines.
• 5+ years in recommendation, search, Ads, or ML Infra.
• Strong CS background, coding skills and algorithms knowledge.
• Experience in at least one of: recommendation system, search engine, advertising engine, Agent/RAG engine, or LLM serving/training.
• Excellent communication and teamwork with ownership mindset.

Responsibilities

• Evolve TikTok's AI Search multi-agent LLM engine, supporting ReAct + Tool calling, DAG-based workflows, and RAG paradigms
• Deploy and optimize text/multimodal LLMs, including inference acceleration, model alignment during training, and reinforcement learning
• Build scalable and reliable end-to-end serving platforms supporting multiple TikTok AI Search use cases, such as Q&A cards, in-app chatbot, and visual search, including both online and offline scenarios
• Build large-scale data architecture for handling billion-level data records: offline computation, distributed system performance and scheduling optimization, as well as building high-availability, high-throughput, and low-latency online services
• Design and build personalized AI search capabilities to achieve more accurate AI Overview and Q&A experience for users
• Collaborate with modeling and product teams to deliver better AI search experience for Tiktok users

Skills

5+ years in recommendation/search/Ads/

Strong CS background; coding skills;

Experience in at least one area: RAG/“

Excellent communication and ownership

Education

Bachelor or advanced degree in Computer Science or related disciplines

Tools

Linux optimization

Large-scale C++

Distributed systems

Distributed databases

GPU inference

LLM serving/training

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team

TikTok AI Search Infra team is responsible for building highly performant, scalable and stable infrastructures that serve billions of search requests everyday, and reinventing the search experience of billions of users globally. We apply cutting edge ML/NLP/LLM/VLM technology for end-to-end modeling, and focus on building and optimizing performance/efficiency for large-scale ML infra and online/offline distributed systems, enabling AI to realize its potential value for billions of TikTok users. We embrace a culture of self-direction, intellectual curiosity, openness, and problem-solving.

• Evolve TikTok's AI Search multi-agent LLM engine, supporting ReAct + Tool calling, DAG-based workflows, and RAG paradigms
• Deploy and optimize text/multimodal LLMs, including inference acceleration, model alignment during training, and reinforcement learning
• Build scalable and reliable end-to-end serving platforms supporting multiple TikTok AI Search use cases, such as Q&A cards, in-app chatbot, and visual search, including both online and offline scenarios
• Build large-scale data architecture for handling billion-level data records: offline computation, distributed system performance and scheduling optimization, as well as building high-availability, high-throughput, and low-latency online services
• Design and build personalized AI search capabilities to achieve more accurate AI Overview and Q&A experience for users
• Collaborate with modeling and product teams to deliver better AI search experience for Tiktok users

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor or advanced degree in Computer Science or related disciplines
• At least 5 years of industry experience in one of the following areas: recommendation, search, Ads and ML Infra
• Strong Computer Science background, proficient coding skills and solid understanding of algorithm & data structure.
• Have experience in at least one of the following areas: recommendation system, search engine, advertising engine, Agent/RAG engine, LLM serving/training.
• Effective communication and teamwork skills, strong ownership mindset

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiar with system performance optimization in Linux environment, experience with large-scale C++ system development are preferred
• Familiar with large-scale distributed systems development; experience with distributed databases or distributed data processing frameworks is a plus
• Experience with GPU inference optimization, LLM/VLM serving and training are preferred

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $254400 - $588000 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.

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

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; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.