Tech Lead, Machine Learning Engineer, Core Feed Recommendation

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok has global offices including Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo.

Why Join Us At TikTok, our people are humble, intelligent, compassionate and creative. We create to inspire - for you, for us, and for more than 1 billion users on our platform. We lead with curiosity and aim for the highest, never shying away from taking calculated risks and embracing ambiguity as it comes. Here, the opportunities are limitless for those who dare to pursue bold ideas that exist just beyond the boundary of possibility. Join us and make impact happen with a career at TikTok.

About the Team TikTok Core Feed Recommendation team sits in the center of TikTok, designs, implements and improves the core recommendation algorithm that powers the "for you" feed, "following" feed, etc. of the TikTok app. The recommendation system we built connects hundreds of millions of users with relevant content out of billions of videos in real-time, and inspires high-quality content creation for millions of creators on the platform.

The team is at the intersection of cutting-edge machine learning research and large-scale end-to-end production systems. We take pride in finding the right balance between solid applied research, elegant system design and being pragmatic. We have a strong user focus and a dedication to technical excellence.

We are looking for strong research scientists and engineers at all levels, who are excited about growing their business understanding, building highly scalable and reliable software, and partnering across disciplines with global teams, in pursuit of excellence.

What you'll do:

• Improve recommendation models at massive scales, through applying state-of-art machine learning techniques across all ranking phases including but not limited to retrieval, ranking, re-ranking and etc.
• Conduct cutting-edge application-driven research to explore the frontier of recommendation algorithmic domain. Develop industry leading recommendation system.
• Work cross functionally with product managers, data scientists and product engineers to understand insights, formulate problems, design and refine machine learning algorithms, and communicate results to peers and leaders.
• Run regular A/B tests, perform analysis and iterate algorithms accordingly.
• Have a good understanding of end-to-end machine learning systems. Work with infra teams on improving efficiency and stability. • 5years+ of hands-on experience in one or more of the areas: recommender systems, machine learning, deep learning, pattern recognition, data mining, computer vision, NLP, content understanding or multimodal machine learning • Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++, and a deep understanding of data structures and algorithms • Familiar with architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet) • Good communication and teamwork skills, be passionate about learning new techniques and taking on challenging problems • Prior industry experience with main components of recommendation systems(retrieval, ranking, re-ranking, cold-start etc.) is a plus but not required

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Publications at main conferences such as KDD、NeurIPS、WWW、SIGIR、WSDM、CIKM、ICLR、ICML、IJCAI、AAAI、RecSys or related conferences
2. Strong tracking record of success in data mining, machine learning, or ACM-ICPC/NOI/IOI competitions
3. Participation in public/open-source AI-related projects which are of high visibility

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

TikTok is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://gprd.accommodations@https://tiktok.com. The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $172000 - $337280 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.​At ByteDance/TikTok our benefits are designed to convey company culture and values, to create an efficient and inspiring work environment, and to support ByteDancers to give their best in both work and life. We offer the following benefits to eligible employees: ​We cover 100% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, approximately 75% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account(HSA) with a company match. As well as Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life and AD&D insurance plans. In addition to Flexible Spending Account(FSA) Options like Health Care, Limited Purpose and Dependent Care. ​Our time off and leave plans are: 10 paid holidays per year plus 17 days of Paid Personal Time Off(PPTO) (prorated upon hire and increased by tenure) and 10 paid sick days per year as well as 12 weeks of paid Parental leave and 8 weeks of paid Supplemental Disability. ​We also provide generous benefits like mental and emotional health benefits through our EAP and Lyra. A 401K company match, gym and cellphone service reimbursements. The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.​