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TikTok · 5 months ago

Foundation Model, Research Engineer Graduate (Monetization Technology - Ads Integrity) - 2026 Start (PhD)

San Jose, CA

Full-time

Onsite

New Grad, Entry Level

$115K/yr - $231K/yr

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, dedicated to inspiring creativity and bringing joy. They are seeking a Research Engineer Graduate to lead cutting-edge AI research and develop generative AI technologies, optimizing performance for TikTok's monetization efforts. This role will involve collaboration with interdisciplinary teams to transition research breakthroughs into production-grade AI services while staying at the forefront of industry innovations.

Content CreatorsContent DiscoveryMedia and EntertainmentSocial MediaVideo

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Lead research and development of advanced generative AI technologies, including LLMs, multimodal models (text/image/video), and deepfake detection/synthesis, focusing on optimizing performance across pre-training, SFT, RLHF, and AI safety

Design and deploy cutting-edge AIGC solutions for content understanding and monetization in diverse applications such as ads, e-commerce, short video, and live streaming, contributing to the creation of next-generation AI-driven ecosystems

Drive advancements in LLM-based agents using reinforcement learning to enable autonomous reasoning, planning, and interactive capabilities, addressing real-world challenges in dynamic environments

Innovate techniques to improve the efficiency of large-scale model training and inference, including distillation, quantization, and speculative decoding, for scalable and practical deployment in production

Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to transition research breakthroughs into production-grade AI services, ensuring robust, low-latency, and cost-effective solutions

Stay at the forefront of generative AI research by contributing to patents, publications, and open-source projects, while actively monitoring and contributing to the latest industry trends and innovations

Qualification

Deep LearningGenerative ModelsReinforcement LearningLarge-scale Model TrainingDeep Learning FrameworksAI SafetyMultimodal LearningPublicationsAgentic SystemsEngineering Skills

Required

Final year Ph.D or recent Ph.D graduates in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or related fields by 2026 (or equivalent industry experience)

Strong foundational experience in deep learning, NLP, and generative models (LLMs, diffusion models, etc.)

Hands-on experience with large-scale model training, RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback), and multimodal learning (text, image, video)

Proficiency in one or more deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow, with familiarity in distributed training frameworks

Preferred

A track record of publications or active research/paper review at top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, CVPR, etc.) or equivalent

Knowledge of AI safety, alignment, and adversarial robustness, with an interest in responsible AI development

Experience in developing agentic systems utilizing reinforcement learning

Strong engineering skills with the ability to deploy models at scale and optimize for performance

Benefits

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

10 paid holidays per year

10 paid sick days per year

17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure)

Company

TikTok

Glassdoor3.4

TikTok is a short-form video entertainment app and social network platform. It is a sub-organization of ByteDance.

Founded in 2003

Los Angeles, California, USA

10001+ employees

https://www.tiktok.com

H1B Sponsorship

TikTok has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

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Trends of Total Sponsorships

2025 (979)

2024 (601)

2023 (387)

2022 (322)

2021 (133)

2020 (72)