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TikTok

Short-form video platform with ads

Software Engineer Intern

AI Application EngineeringPosted on Nov 7
Internship · Summer 2027San Jose, CA, USA$60 /hrIn-person

About the Job

Requirements

  • Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, Data Science, or a related technical discipline.
  • Have solid programming skills in at least one of Python, Go, C++, or Java, along with good software engineering practices.
  • Have a strong foundation in machine learning and data analysis, and use rigorous experimental methodology by defining metrics, running controlled comparisons, and drawing defensible conclusions.
  • Be effective in an English-speaking, cross-functional environment.

Responsibilities

  • Build agent workflows that profile the risk engine, identify latency, CPU, memory, and cost bottlenecks, propose and verify optimizations, and detect performance regressions.
  • Explore recursive self-improvement loops by proposing, benchmarking, evaluating, and iterating on optimizations so the process is sustained and closed-loop rather than one-off tuning.
  • Design agents that audit the rule base throughout its lifecycle by detecting redundant, conflicting, expired, or low-value rules; analyzing online impact; and generating safe change or decommission proposals with human-in-the-loop approval, rollback, and audit trails.
  • Contribute to shared agent capabilities, including tool use, workflow orchestration, evaluation benchmarks and guardrails, observability, and safety controls.
  • Take prototypes to production with measurable impact.

Desired Qualifications

  • Have research or engineering experience in LLM agents, self-improving or self-evolving systems, automated code or performance optimization, program synthesis, or reinforcement learning; publications at top venues are a plus.
  • Have experience with large-scale backend or infrastructure systems, including performance profiling and optimization, distributed systems, rule engines, feature or factor platforms, or risk control systems.
  • Have experience building agent evaluation, observability, or safety and guardrail mechanisms for production LLM systems.
  • Have open-source contributions, competition results, or prior research internships in related areas.
  • Have hands-on experience building with LLMs or agents, such as tool and function calling, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-step agent workflows, or prompt and context engineering, through research, projects, or prior internships.

About the Company

TikTok

Short-form video platform with ads

TikTok is a short-form mobile video platform that lets people create, discover, and share quick videos. Users upload vertical clips, edit them with built-in tools, and browse a personalized feed powered by an algorithm that highlights relevant content. Advertisers can use in-feed ads, branded hashtags, and the Business Center to plan and measure campaigns, making it easy for brands to reach a global audience. Its goal is to inspire creativity and bring joy by helping people express themselves and by connecting brands with a wide audience.

Company size
10,001+
Company stage
Grant
Total funding
$740K
Headquarters
Santa Monica, CA
Founded
2016

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