TikTok

TikTok R&D Engineer (Open Platform)

TikTok$156K — $316K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 1+ years of software development experience with business understanding
  • Experience in designing and developing distributed systems
  • Self-motivated with strong ownership and a growth mindset
  • Experience driving product or business initiatives
  • Proficiency in AI-Native tools and methodologies like LLM and Prompt Engineering
  • Experience with Agent Fleet-type products and evaluating major models
  • Knowledge in scaling AI systems in startup environments

Responsibilities

  • Deliver end-to-end Open Platform APIs for server-side and client-side development
  • Design and implement an AI-Agent-based delivery model to streamline development
  • Ensure security of the open ecosystem and connect native developers
  • Maintain a high-quality environment for TikTok's ecosystem
  • Enforce platform policies and deliver reliable developer tools

Benefits

  • Day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • 401(k) savings plan with company match
  • Paid parental leave
  • Short-term and long-term disability coverage
  • Life insurance and wellbeing benefits
  • 10 paid holidays and 10 paid sick days annually
  • 17 days of Paid Personal Time with increasing accruals
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

TikTok's Open Platform team builds the core infrastructure that enables external developers to integrate with TikTok safely and efficiently. The team provides APIs, SDKs, and platform capabilities that allow partners to create innovative experiences while ensuring data security, ecosystem integrity, and scalable performance. We focus on delivering reliable developer tools, enforcing platform policies, and maintaining a secure, high-quality environment for the broader TikTok ecosystem.
• Deliver end-to-end Open Platform APIs, including both server-side and client-side development.
• Design and implement an AI-Agent-based delivery model to accelerate the full development lifecycle (PRD - coding - testing - launch).
• Ensure the security of the open ecosystem and build technical capabilities that connect native developers, supporting a secure and scalable open platform.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications
• 1+ years of software development experience with strong business understanding and abstraction skills.
• Experience designing and developing distributed systems; able to independently complete system design and implementation.
• Strong ownership, self-motivation, and a growth mindset.
• Experience exploring vertical domains or independently driving product or business initiatives.
• AI-Native or related experience, such as Agent, LLM, Prompt Engineering, Agentic Workflow, or deep usage of tools like Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Devin, etc. Preferred Qualifications
• Experience leading Agent Fleet-type products and evaluating differences across major model families (Anthropic, OpenAI, GLM, Doubao, etc.).
• Experience building and scaling AI systems end-to-end, ideally in startup or 0-1 product environments.
• Strong intuition for model behavior, safety, and governance in generative-AI systems.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency]Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $156000 - $316800 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

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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