The Solutions Engineering (SE) team at TikTok helps anticipate, identify, and solve the issues our largest clients are facing. In supporting some of the most recognized brands around the world to make their mark on TikTok, SE team members serve as an essential bridge between sales, partners, and products -- making a major impact on our revenue each day. Given their wide range of responsibilities, they rely on both soft and technical skills to communicate with clients and help code new product solutions themselves.
In order to learn more about the team's culture and work, we recently spoke with three team members -- TT Ho, Nikita Malhotra, and Sergio Rivas -- who work in different capacities within the team. Here's what they had to say about life as an SE at TikTok!
Tell us about yourself. What is your background and what drew you to TikTok?
TT: "I had a mix of experiences as both a software engineer and product manager, including over five years at one of the major global tech giants. While the skills I built with coding and market research both translated well to my role at TikTok, I was most excited about working on a new product with an inspiring mission, and helping the app grow at scale and realize its huge potential."
Nikita: "Before coming to TikTok, I was a software engineer at a large retail company. What drew me to TikTok was all the interesting problems the team was trying to solve; I knew I would be challenged and do work with greater impact. Like TT, I was also drawn to the opportunity to join a startup environment and help a young and growing app."
Sergio: "Before TikTok, I was CTO and chief engineer of a company that developed apps to streamline supply chain management for international athletics brands. Part of why I came to TikTok was because I had read articles about TikTok's managerial philosophy and liked the fact that it had an 'anti-hierarchy personality,' which was different from other global tech companies. I also saw a significant international component to the work, which fit my personal background with global experience outside the US."
What does a Solutions Engineer do at TikTok?
TT: "Since solutions engineering is not an established role in the industry, there can be some misconceptions about what we do! While SE may be a more reactive role at other companies (like a 'sales engineer'), we do a lot more strategic thinking and action at TikTok and aren't involved with pre or post-sales work. Ideally, 50% of our work is customer-facing, and 50% is product building, so it's important to understand clients' business models and challenges -- as well as general gaps in the market -- in order to propose new solutions or product features. In implementing solutions, SEs do the 'first mile' of the job by raising the problem and building value proposition, and often do the 'last mile' too by adapting the product offering for other verticals, testing the market to see if it can scale, and so on."
Nikita: "This is my first SE role, but I feel like what we do is unique because we get the opportunity to hear firsthand from our clients, partners, and sales team. We get feedback that other types of engineers may not always hear, but we're still engineers at our core -- we lean on our technical expertise to communicate with clients in a non-technical way, and we use the fundamentals we learned as developers every day. Ultimately, our goal is to elevate the client experience on TikTok and transform that success into incremental revenue."
What are your responsibilities within the team?
TT: "I focus on the partnerships side, which involves working with partners to help them leverage our marketing API. I also identify opportunities for our team to co-build projects. Most importantly, as a team leader, I support team members to understand their career growth at TikTok and align their personal interests with their work. We always encourage teammates to gain exposure to every facet of projects and lean on the resources we provide to help them grow."
Sergio: "As one of the SE Tech Leads for enterprise clients, my role has both technology and business components. For tech projects that are driven by the SE team, I get into the code and build it out from start to finish, but for other projects led by Research & Development, I work mostly in a supportive or project management role. On the business side, I help advise the sales team about ways to leverage our technology to increase revenue, and work directly with clients to help them achieve their goals. Whether it's working with back-end engineers or frontline sales teams, I wear many different hats and engage in projects that are almost always cross-functional."
What has been the most memorable project you've worked on so far?
Nikita: "The most memorable project for me was our work at the Hackathon, an event where over 120 TikTok engineers across the US and EU came up with and presented their ideas. Along with Sergio and a small team, we built TikTok for a new media platform, and our idea is now in development as the next groundbreaking product in the industry! In those two days, I grew much closer to my teammates and other like-minded engineers at TikTok who are just as eager as I am to take on challenging projects and improve our product. This is what I love most about working here: no matter what our title is, we can have a huge impact."
Sergio: "Outside of the Hackathon, another memorable project I worked on with Nikita was the end-to-end development of an Excel plugin that pulls all the ads statistics from TikTok that advertisers would typically get from the Ads Manager. This project was fun because we learned about a different technology stack (Microsoft has their own supported framework) and got involved with every step of the process: logo design, code, and going to market. In the end, we managed to create something entirely new for the company and the industry.
This was a great example of what I enjoy most about working as an SE, which is the interplay between investigation and creative thinking. I'm a creative at heart, so I love that I can come up with (and pursue) outside-the-box solutions that can immediately impact key clients. This makes our work exciting -- any given week, you might receive a message that there's half a million dollars at stake and you're the one responsible for making sure it doesn't disappear!"
How does TikTok support its engineers and help them grow?
Nikita: "There are many people in my support system at TikTok, including my manager, who have been open to understanding what I'm interested in and where I want to be in my career. They make sure to provide opportunities to help me realize my goals, challenge myself, and improve my current skillset. For example, I really enjoy coding and development, so my leaders have given me many opportunities to code and own significant projects from end-to-end. It's not just 'fix this bug,' but 'here's an idea for a feature -- understand what it is, come up with the design, and launch.'"
Sergio: "As mentioned earlier, the Hackathon was a great opportunity for engineers to come together internally and have our creative ideas heard. We also have the freedom to branch out and learn new areas of coding we may be interested in; for example, if you want to gain experience with machine learning, you can set up a co-build project with a team of experts and shadow them throughout the process. This is actually encouraged in our culture, which focuses more on the development of the individual and their skills than a fixed hierarchy of advancement and promotion (which can often revolve around who you know). If you're reaching your goals in quantifiable ways, there's no glass ceiling to your progression like you might find at other tech companies."
Powered by a wide range of diverse talents from around the world, our Solutions Engineering team helps solve some of the most pressing problems for our business each day. If you're excited to join TT, Sergio, Nikita, and the rest of Team TikTok, make sure to browse openings on our jobs page and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates!
