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TikTok · 8 hours ago

Software Engineer Intern (Recommendation Infrastructure) - 2026 Start (PhD)

San Jose, CA

Internship

Onsite

Intern

Start in 2026 Summer

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, and they are seeking a Software Engineer Intern for their Recommendation Architecture Team. The role involves building and optimizing the architecture for recommendation products to enhance user experience, while providing interns with industry exposure and hands-on experience.

Content CreatorsContent DiscoveryMedia and EntertainmentSocial MediaVideo

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Build and maintain high performance online services for TikTok recommendation system to support various types of products, such as For You Feed, E-commerce, Social, etc

Build extremely efficient and reliable data pipelines for candidates generation, profile generation, training examples generation, realtime online training, etc

Build globalized large-scale recommendation system

Design and develop high performance computing frameworks and storage systems

Qualification

CC++JavaPythonMachine LearningBig Data FrameworksDistributed Storage SystemsEffective CommunicationSelf-Driven LearnerSense of Ownership

Required

Currently pursuing PhD in Computer Science or a related technical discipline

Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026

Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment

Experience in programming, included but not limited to, the following programming languages: C, C++, Java or Python

Effective communication skills, self-driven learner, a sense of ownership

Projects or research experienced in at least one area of the following areas: personalized recommendations, search engine, machine learning, distributed storage system, big data frameworks is a plus

Preferred

Graduating December 2026 onwards with the intent to return to degree program after the completion of the internship

Benefits

Interns have day one access to health insurance

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

10 paid holidays per year

Paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year)

Housing allowance

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

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2025 (979)

2024 (601)

2023 (387)

2022 (322)

2021 (133)

2020 (72)