Technical Lead - TikTok Privacy & Security

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 218,000 - 388,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision insurance

401(k) matching

Parental Leave

Disability Insurance

Wellbeing benefits

10 paid holidays per year

10 paid sick days per year

17 days Paid Personal Time

Job summary

TikTok seeks a Technical Lead for Privacy & Security in San Jose to guide a diverse engineering team across full-stack, front-end, and back-end work. You will collaborate with Product, Data Scientists, and QA to shape roadmaps and drive a privacy-first teen experience, earning user trust and regulatory confidence.

You will mentor engineers, define technical vision, and ensure high-quality, secure features while improving delivery and cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science or a related field, with at least 5 years of experience.
• Strong experience architecting and implementing modern, large-scale, consumer-facing web applications.
• Solid backend or full-stack development background, with a strong understanding of complex backend systems.
• Proven experience building, designing, and scaling user-facing products and their software architecture.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive approach to identifying and resolving technical challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional collaboration toward shared goals.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of engineers and partner with Product to earn user trust through privacy transparency and privacy education features.
• Collaborate with PM and partner teams to shape the team's roadmap.
• Define and drive the team's technical vision, strategy, and roadmap.
• Ensure timely delivery of high-quality features and improvements.
• Continuously improve product quality, engineering efficiency, and security.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, including product managers, data scientists, and infrastructure teams.
• Mentor and grow team members, cultivating an environment that supports learning, development, and achievement for everyone.

Skills

Team leadership

Full-stack

Architecture

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

Technical Lead - TikTok Privacy & Security

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A76426

Responsibilities

The TikTok Eng-Privacy and Security-Product-Teen Experiences plays a vital role in building regulatory-compliant, user-centric privacy solutions for teens on TikTok. Our mission is to earn the trust of TikTok users, regulators, and the broader community. We develop a wide range of privacy products spanning transparency, user and underage protection, user data and interaction controls, and more.We are looking for a Technical Lead to guide the engineering team behind TikTok's privacy-focused teen experience initiatives. In this role, you will lead a group of talented engineers across full-stack, front-end, and back-end development. Your core responsibility is to foster seamless collaboration within the team and across cross-functional (XFN) partners—including Product Managers, User Researchers, Data Scientists, and QA. Through these teen experience efforts, your leadership will be instrumental in building lasting user trust.

• Lead a team of engineers and partner with Product to earn user trust through privacy transparency and privacy education features.
• Collaborate with PM and partner teams to shape the team's roadmap.
• Define and drive the team's technical vision, strategy, and roadmap.
• Ensure timely delivery of high-quality features and improvements.
• Continuously improve product quality, engineering efficiency, and security.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, including product managers, data scientists, and infrastructure teams.
• Mentor and grow team members, cultivating an environment that supports learning, development, and achievement for everyone.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification(s)

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science or a related field, with at least 5 years of experience.
• Strong experience architecting and implementing modern, large-scale, consumer-facing web applications.
• Solid backend or full-stack development background, with a strong understanding of complex backend systems.
• Proven experience building, designing, and scaling user-facing products and their software architecture.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive approach to identifying and resolving technical challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional collaboration toward shared goals.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Preferred Qualification(s)

• 2+ years of industry experience in privacy engineering, security engineering, or building privacy features and solutions.
• Experience with user-facing privacy or compliance products.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $218400 - $387600 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

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:

• 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;
• 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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