Tech Lead AI Software Engineer - Creative AI Agents (TikTok)

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 218,000 - 480,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Short-term and long-term disability

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

10 paid holidays per year

10 paid sick days per year

17 days Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok is seeking a Tech Lead AI Software Engineer for Creative AI Agents in San Jose. You will define the technical vision and roadmap for TikTok's AR Effect Generation AI system and own end-to-end architecture from design to deployment.

You will lead research and productization of generative and agentic AI techniques, collaborate with product, design, engineering, and AI teams, and mentor engineers while balancing quality, latency, safety, and user impact.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and roadmap for TikTok's AR Effect Generation AI system.
• Own the end-to-end architecture and development of key AI Effect Generation system, from problem discovery and technical design to implementation, rollout, and long-term maintenance; across data collection, context engineering, evaluation, and product integration.
• Lead the research and productization of generative and agentic AI techniques for visual, interactive, and 3D content creation, integrating multimodal models with graphics engines and creator workflows while balancing quality, controllability, latency, reliability, safety, and delivery speed.
• Establish robust experimentation, evaluation, and observability practices—including offline metrics, staged rollouts, A/B experiments, tracing, and quality monitoring, use online results to guide future research and product decisions.
• Collaborate with product, design, engineering, and AI/ML partners to translate ambiguous creator and platform needs into clear technical strategies, align stakeholders on trade-offs, and deliver measurable user impact.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers and researchers, identify reusable abstractions across projects, raise engineering and research standards, and foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and innovation.

Job description

Tech Lead AI Software Engineer - Creative AI Agents (TikTok)

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A101417A

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Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and roadmap for TikTok's AR Effect Generation AI system, identifying high-impact research opportunities and land in impactful TikTok product features.
• Own the end-to-end architecture and development of key AI Effect Generation system, from problem discovery and technical design to implementation, rollout, and long-term maintenance; across data collection, context engineering, evaluation, and product integration.
• Lead the research and productization of generative and agentic AI techniques for visual, interactive, and 3D content creation, integrating multimodal models with graphics engines and creator workflows while balancing quality, controllability, latency, reliability, safety, and delivery speed.
• Establish robust experimentation, evaluation, and observability practices—including offline metrics, staged rollouts, A/B experiments, tracing, and quality monitoring, use online results to guide future research and product decisions.
• Collaborate with product, design, engineering, and AI/ML partners to translate ambiguous creator and platform needs into clear technical strategies, align stakeholders on trade-offs, and deliver measurable user impact.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers and researchers, identify reusable abstractions across projects, raise engineering and research standards, and foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and innovation.

Qualifications

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $218400 - $480000 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:

• 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:
• Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
• Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
• Exercising sound judgment.

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.

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.

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

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