Machine Learning Engineer Intern
TikTok
Machine Learning Engineer Intern
TikTok
Short-form video platform with ads
About the Team Our team is responsible for the search algorithm for our rapidly growing global e-Commerce business. We use state-of-the-art large-scale machine learning technology, the cutting-edge NLP, CV and multi-modal technology to build the industry's top-class search engine to provide the best e-Commerce search experience, for more than 1 billion monthly users around the world. Our mission is to build a world where "there is no hard-to-sell good-priced product in the world". We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. PhD internships at Our Company provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, as well as to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early. Please clearly state your availability in your resume (Start date, End date). Responsibilities - Develop algorithms for our next-generation Agentic Search engine, covering the full search pipeline: query understanding, planning, retrieval, ranking, RAG and generation. The goal is to improve relevance, answer quality and user experience. - Build Agentic Search capabilities such as Search Agent, Deep Search and Deep Research, applying Planning, Tool Use, Multi-hop Retrieval, Grounding, Citation and Self-Verification in real search scenarios. - Train the Search Foundation Model and build the data–evaluation–training loop. This includes SFT, Preference Learning, RLHF/RLVR, Distillation, Synthetic Data and Long Context, as well as LLM-as-a-Judge and rubric-based automated evaluation built from search logs. - Work with product and engineering teams to ship intelligent search to hundreds of millions of users. - Follow frontier research in LLMs, Agents, multimodality, RL, Memory and Inference-time Compute.
Minimum Qualification(s) - Currently Pursuing a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline. - Strong coding skills in C/C++ or Python, and a solid grounding in data structures and algorithms. - Familiar with ML/DL fundamentals (Transformer, Attention, Embedding) and PyTorch. - Research or project experience in search, recommendation, ads, IR, NLP, LLMs, multimodality or RL. - Strong problem-solving, learning and collaboration skills. Preferred Qualification(s) - In-depth research or project experience in Agentic Search, Deep Research, RAG, LLM Post-Training or RLHF/RLVR. - Publications at top venues such as KDD, SIGIR, WWW, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP or CVPR. - Awards in competitions such as ACM/ICPC, NOI/IOI or Kaggle. - Experience with large-scale search or recommender systems, distributed training, or LLM inference optimization.
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 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.
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