SRE Tech Lead Manager, Video Platform - USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 208,800 - 438,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) match

Parental leave

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

Paid holidays

Paid sick days

Paid personal time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is seeking an experienced Senior Site Reliability Engineer leader to guide a team building observable, fault-tolerant video services at scale. You will shape architecture for a globally distributed service mesh and drive production ownership and incident response practices.

This role emphasizes mentoring, roadmaps for observability and automation, and collaboration with security/compliance to ensure data protection and regulatory compliance.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience running high-availability web services at massive scale and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience in design/development or SRE in video streaming or related services.
• Previous experience leading a small to mid-size team with hands-on contributions.
• Strong Unix/Linux internals and networking fundamentals.
• Proficiency in production-grade coding (Go, Python, Java or similar).
• Proven track record of SRE best practices across organizations.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to an SRE team focused on fault-tolerant video services with high availability.
• Drive architectural decisions for large-scale, globally distributed service mesh architectures.
• Establish production ownership models, incident response protocols, and SLAs.
• Develop roadmaps for observability and automation to enhance reliability.
• Balance technical contributions with people management and career development.
• Foster trust, learning, and knowledge sharing across teams.
• Lead security initiatives with security/compliance to protect data and meet regulatory requirements.

Skills

Distributed systems design

High-availability web services

Cloud-native architectures

Unix/Linux internals

Networking fundamentals

Go/Python/Java coding

SRE best practices

Leadership/mentorship

Kubernetes

Video streaming

Tools

Kubernetes

Cloud platforms

Observability tools (Prometheus/Grafana)

Job description

Responsibilities

Team Intro
TikTok video system is a world-leading video platform that provides multimedia storage, delivery, transcoding services. As part of the USDS, the Video Platform team is responsible for building the next generation video processing platform which provides excellent experiences for billions of users around the world.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to a team of Site Reliability Engineers focused on building observable, fault-tolerant video services with high availability
• Drive architectural decisions for large-scale, globally distributed service mesh architectures
• Establish and maintain production ownership models, incident response protocols, and service level agreements
• Develop strategic roadmaps for observability and automation initiatives that enhance system reliability
• Balance technical contributions with people management responsibilities, including career development, performance evaluations, and team growth
• Foster a culture of trust, continuous learning and improvement, and knowledge sharing within your team and across the organization
• Lead security initiatives to safeguard critical assets, partnering with security and compliance teams to implement robust protocols and enforcement that ensure data protection and regulatory compliance across all services

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• 5 years of experience and expertise in designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems with various databases, caching solutions and other web service components
• Experience in running high-availability web services at massive scale, with comprehensive knowledge of cloud-native architectures and advanced networking concepts
• Experience in design/development or SRE experience in video streaming or related services
• Previous experience leading a small to mid-size team while maintaining significant "hands-on" technical contributions
• Strong understanding of Unix/Linux operating systems internals and networking fundamentals
• Proficiency in writing production-grade code in Go, Python, Java or similar languages
• Proven track record of establishing and implementing SRE best practices across engineering organizations

Preferred Qualifications:

• Previous experience in design/development or SRE in video processing applications
• Experience in large scale Kubernetes systems
• Deep expertise in algorithms, data structures, and systems design with proven ability to architect complex technical solutions

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 $208800 - $438000 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; and
• 3. Exercising sound judgment.