TikTok

Machine Learning Engineer Intern (TikTok-Data-Search-Search Quality) - 2026 Start (PhD)

TikTok$124K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • PhD candidate in Software Development, Computer Science, or related field.
  • Proficient in coding with strong algorithms and data structures knowledge.
  • Experience in NLP, ranking, or machine learning.
  • Strong communication and teamwork abilities.
  • Exposure to search systems or data pipelines.

Responsibilities

  • Assist in the design and development of search features and tools under mentorship.
  • Analyze large-scale user data to enhance search quality.
  • Collaborate with engineering and data science teams to meet project goals.
  • Maintain code and documentation for ongoing projects.
  • Report progress and challenges to mentors regularly.

Benefits

  • Immediate access to health and life insurance.
  • 10 paid holidays annually.
  • Paid sick leave up to 56 hours.
  • Potential housing allowance for non-remote interns.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

The Search team builds the systems that help users find relevant, reliable, and engaging content across TikTok. The team works across search retrieval, ranking, recommendation signals, query understanding, relevance, infrastructure, and product experiences. Our work combines large-scale machine learning, data-driven product development, and distributed systems to improve search quality for a global user base. 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 - Support the design, implementation, testing, and iteration of Search features, services, or tools under the guidance of engineers and mentors. - Work with large-scale data, logs, metrics, or experiments to understand user search behavior and improve product or system quality. - Collaborate with engineering, product, data science, and machine learning partners to define requirements and deliver project milestones. - Write clear, maintainable code and documentation for assigned workstreams. - Communicate progress, risks, and learnings with mentors and stakeholders throughout the internship.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications - Must be able to commit to a 12-week full-time work. - Currently pursuing a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline. - Proficient coding skills and strong algorithm & data structure basis. - Effective communication and teamwork skills. - Experience in one or more of the following areas: NLP, Ranking, Ads, search engine, recommender system, distributed system, and machine learning. Preferred Qualifications - Experience with search, recommendation, machine learning, information retrieval, natural language processing, ranking, ads, content understanding, or data mining projects. - Familiarity with databases, distributed systems, data pipelines, experimentation, or large-scale backend services. - Experience using data to investigate product, user, or system problems. - Ability to communicate technical ideas clearly and collaborate with cross-functional partners. - Interest in improving search experiences for large-scale consumer products.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency]Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

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

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). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

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 a social media app that allows users to create and share short videos. The app was launched in 2016 by Chinese tech company ByteDance. TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps in the world, with over 1 billion active users. The app has been downloaded over 2 billion times worldwide. TikTok has faced controversy over its data privacy practices and its potential ties to the Chinese government. In 2020, the app faced a potential ban in the United States, but a deal was reached with Oracle and Walmart to create a new company called TikTok Global.
Learn more about TikTok
Size
1,750 employees
Industry
Founded
2012

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