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

TikTok

4.5

(6)

San Jose, CA

Why you should apply for a job to TikTok:

  • 4.5/5 in overall job satisfaction
  • 4.5/5 in supportive management
  • 100% say women are treated fairly and equally to men
  • 100% would recommend this company to other women
  • 100% say the CEO supports gender diversity
  • Ratings are based on anonymous reviews by Fairygodboss members.
  • Employee well-being is supported via hybrid work, short-term counseling through our EAP and a premium subscription to Headspace.
  • We embrace diversity across all dimensions and provide employees with 9 employee resource groups globally, including our WOMEN ERG.
  • Comprehensive parental leave policy as well as fertility treatment through healthcare providers with a $20,000 lifetime maximum.
  • #7533010433386809607

    Position summary

    h industry experts.
    Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

    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.

    Qualifications

    Minimum Qualifications:
    • 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 Qualifications
    • Graduating December 2026 onwards with the intent to return to degree program after the completion of the internship.

    By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://careers.tiktok.com/legal/privacy

    Why you should apply for a job to TikTok:

  • 4.5/5 in overall job satisfaction
  • 4.5/5 in supportive management
  • 100% say women are treated fairly and equally to men
  • 100% would recommend this company to other women
  • 100% say the CEO supports gender diversity
  • Ratings are based on anonymous reviews by Fairygodboss members.
  • Employee well-being is supported via hybrid work, short-term counseling through our EAP and a premium subscription to Headspace.
  • We embrace diversity across all dimensions and provide employees with 9 employee resource groups globally, including our WOMEN ERG.
  • Comprehensive parental leave policy as well as fertility treatment through healthcare providers with a $20,000 lifetime maximum.