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Research Scientist Intern (TikTok Recommendation - Gen AI) - 2026 Start (PhD)

Location:

San Jose

Employment Type:

Intern

Job Code:

A187821

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Responsibilities

About the Team Recommendation algorithm team plays a central role in the company, driving critical product decisions and platform growth. The team is made up of machine learning researchers and engineers, who support and innovate on production recommendation models and drive product impact. The team is fast-pacing, collaborative and impact-driven. We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship from August 2025 onwards. Internships at TikTok aim to offer students industry exposure and hands-on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at TikTok. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to apply early. Successful candidates are expected to work with the team for at least 12 weeks during the internship Responsibilities: - Conducting development and research on cutting-edge CV, NLP, multi-modality, LLM, generative modeling - Following SoTA progress in relevant fields and transform the ideas into production - Life-cycle model development, from model training, deployment, maintenance, till its use in business scenarios.


Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications: - Currently pursuing PhD Degree. - Hands-on experience in one or more of the following areas: Large Language Models (LLM), Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Recommender Systems, Data Mining, or Natural Language Processing - Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++, and a deep understanding of data structures and algorithms - Familiar with architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet) - Excellent communication and teamwork skills, and a passion for learning new techniques and tackling challenging problems Preferred Qualifications: - Prior research/industry experience with deploying, prompting, and fine-tuning foundation models - Prior research/industry experience with applied machine learning, or large-scale recommendation systems - Publications at major AI-related conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, IJCAI, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, KDD, ICDM, SDM, RecSys, or simply on arXiv but with large impact - Strong track record in AI-related competitions, or participation in public/open-source AI-related projects of high visibility


Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $60- $75.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year).

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.

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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@2025 TikTok