Staff Software Engineer — Data Privacy & Infrastructure

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 198,000 - 416,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is seeking a Staff Software Engineer focused on Data Privacy and Infrastructure to lead Data Lifecycle Management and Privacy Engineering efforts. You will architect and define roadmaps for data visibility, lineage, and decommissioning across a massive data ecosystem, while guiding PETs integration and automated privacy enforcement.

You will influence cross-functional teams, drive scalable onboarding, and design high-assurance pipelines ensuring data integrity,

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software development experience in distributed systems.
• Experience designing and operating large-scale data platforms with Hadoop, Spark, or similar tech.
• Strong architectural leadership across cross-functional teams and privacy-by-design initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term technical roadmap for the DLM Platform and PET integration.
• Lead design and scaling of backend services for data retention, archival, and purging across engines (HDFS, ClickHouse, MySQL).
• Create self-service onboarding APIs and tooling to onboard new apps into DLM with cost-consciousness.
• Define migration standards, fallbacks, and rollout strategies for legacy systems into governance pipelines.
• Architect centralized metadata and lineage to enable real-time audits and compliance checks.
• Drive PETs implementation (differential privacy, MPC, etc.) for privacy-preserving analytics.
• Collaborate with Security, Compliance, Legal, and product teams to deliver privacy-by-design APIs.
• Mentor engineers and lead architecture reviews for mission-critical systems.

Skills

Distributed systems

Hive

Spark

Kafka

Kubernetes

Technical leadership

Privacy engineering

Education

CS degree (BSc/MSc/PhD)

Tools

HDFS

ClickHouse

MySQL

Real-time streaming

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team

You will join the TikTok USDS Data Governance and Assurance Engineering team. We are the architects of the foundational infrastructure that manages the entire data lifecycle for one of the world's most massive data ecosystems. Our mission is to ensure that every byte of US data is handled with the highest standards of integrity, security, and privacy compliance. Our team sits at the core of Privacy Engineering and Distributed Systems. We don't just write privacy policies; we build the automated engines that enforce them. We are replacing manual oversight with "Privacy-as-Code," ensuring that data privacy is a hard technical guarantee rather than a best-effort guideline.

About the Role

As a Staff Software Engineer - Data Privacy & Infrastructure, you will be the principal technical anchor and visionary for our Data Lifecycle Management (DLM) and Privacy Engineering initiatives. You will not just implement systems; you will architect and define the long-term technical roadmap for how we achieve 100% visibility into where data lives, how it moves (Lineage), and how it is decommissioned across a massive, heterogeneous ecosystem. You will lead highly complex, cross-functional technical initiatives that serve as the prerequisite for all AI Safety - safeguarding the integrity of petabyte-scale data while deploying cutting-edge privacy techniques.

Core Focus Areas

• Next-Gen Privacy & PETs Strategy: Serving as the key subject matter expert to research, evaluate, and productionalize advanced PETs (such as Differential Privacy, Homomorphic Encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and Secure Multi-Party Computation) to unlock secure, privacy-preserving ML training and analytics.
• Data Inventory & Taxonomy: Directing the design of self-healing, automated scanning engines capable of identifying sensitive data across global, petabyte-scale Data Lakes and real-time streams with minimal performance overhead.
• Scalable Onboarding & Risk Mitigation: Designing highly scalable, self-service frameworks and migration playbooks that allow product teams to onboard new applications into the DLM scope autonomously. You will define clear, tiered risk-mitigation pathways and ensure integration happens with optimal cost-efficiency and minimal developer friction.
• Lineage & Traceability: Defining the technical standards and system design for tracking the "genealogy" of data from ingestion to complex machine learning training sets.
• Automated Remediation: Overseeing the engineering of zero-tolerance, high-reliability "Right to be Forgotten" pipelines that execute near-instantaneous deletion across disparate offline and online storage.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Vision: Define the architectural blueprint and long-term technical roadmap for the DLM Platform and PET integration. Elevate our "Privacy-as-Code" vision from concept to production-grade reality.
• DLM Platform Architecture: Lead the design and scaling of high-throughput, fault-tolerant backend services managing data retention, archival, and purging policies across heterogeneous engines (HDFS, ClickHouse, MySQL, etc.).
• Federated Onboarding & FinOps: Architect developer‑friendly, self‑service onboarding APIs and tools that minimize engineering friction when bringing new apps into DLM. Continuously optimize the infrastructure cost‑of‑compliance, balancing data processing overhead against business budget constraints.
• Risk-Mitigated Migrations: Define technical standards, fallback mechanisms, and progressive rollout strategies to safely migrate legacy systems and new business domains into governance pipelines without breaking production SLAs.
• Enterprise Metadata & Lineage: Drive the architecture of a highly scalable, centralized metadata repository mapping complex data relationships, enabling real‑time audits and proactive compliance checks.
• PETs Implementation: Champion and build the foundational cryptographic and statistical frameworks (e.g., advanced pseudonymization, differential privacy) needed to protect user identity in large-scale analytics and ML pipelines.
• Technical Influence & Collaboration: Partner closely with Security, Compliance, Legal, and product engineering leaders to establish unified, developer‑friendly "privacy-by-design" APIs and frameworks.
• Mentorship & Culture: Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical rigor, pragmatic design, and operational excellence. Lead code and architecture reviews for business‑critical systems.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• Industry Experience: 5+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of architecting, building, and operating large‑scale distributed systems in production.
• Big Data & Infrastructure: Strong experience in leading technical initiatives within high‑volume data ecosystems (e.g., Hive, Spark, Kafka, Kubernetes) and optimizing storage/compute pipelines.
• Technical Leadership: Proven experience leading complex, multi‑quarter technical projects from ambiguity to successful deployment, influencing stakeholders across multiple teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Developer Platform & Migration Experience: Demonstrated track record of driving large‑scale platform migrations or designing self‑service SDKs/platforms that successfully onboarded dozens of tenant teams with clear risk‑containment strategies.
• Cost Optimization (FinOps): Experience in designing resource‑efficient architectures, managing cloud/on‑prem infrastructure costs, or implementing data lifecycle strategies specifically aimed at ROI and storage cost reduction.
• Privacy-by-Design & PETs Expertise: Deep prior experience in Privacy Engineering, GDPR/CCPA compliance architectures, or hands‑on application of PETs (Differential Privacy, MPC, etc.) in high‑scale data platforms.
• Data Lineage & Cataloging: Experience designing or heavily customizing metadata catalogs or lineage tools (e.g., Apache Atlas, Amundsen, or advanced proprietary systems).
• Scale-Driven Impact: Experience designing "Data Deletion/Purging" frameworks that operate reliably at extreme scale—where a single request triggers cascade deletions across thousands of distributed nodes with strict SLA guarantees.

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.

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 $198360 - $416100 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. 1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. 2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
3. 3. Exercising sound judgment.