Research Scientist Intern (TikTok-Data-Search-Visual Search) - 2027 Start (PhD)

San Jose · Posted Oct 03

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At a glance

Location: San Jose, CA
Work type: Onsite
Visa sponsorship: Not offered
Category: Research

PhD internship at TikTok in San Jose, CA, focusing on search systems, data analysis, and ML-driven improvements to large-scale search quality. 12-week full-time internship with mentorship, collaboration across engineering, product, data science, and ML teams, and opportunities to contribute to search features, experiments, and product metrics.

What they are looking for

Machine learningNlpDistributed systemsInformation retrievalRanking

Location: San Jose, California, United States of America Department: R&D

The Search team builds the systems that help users find relevant, reliable, and engaging content across TikTok. The team works across search retrieval, ranking, recommendation signals, query understanding, relevance, infrastructure, and product experiences. Our work combines large-scale machine learning, data-driven product development, and distributed systems to improve search quality for a global user base.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. PhD internships at Our Company provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, as well as to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies.

Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts.

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

Responsibilities

Support the design, implementation, testing, and iteration of Search features, services, or tools under the guidance of engineers and mentors.
Work with large-scale data, logs, metrics, or experiments to understand user search behavior and improve product or system quality.
Collaborate with engineering, product, data science, and machine learning partners to define requirements and deliver project milestones.
Write clear, maintainable code and documentation for assigned workstreams.
Communicate progress, risks, and learnings with mentors and stakeholders throughout the internship.

Minimum Qualifications

Currently pursuing a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
Must be able to commit to a 12-week full-time work.
Proficient coding skills and strong algorithm & data structure basis.
Effective communication and teamwork skills.
Experience in one or more of the following areas: NLP, Ranking, Ads, search engine, recommender system, distributed system, and machine learning.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with search, recommendation, machine learning, information retrieval, natural language processing, ranking, ads, content understanding, or data mining projects.
Familiarity with databases, distributed systems, data pipelines, experimentation, or large-scale backend services.
Experience using data to investigate product, user, or system problems.
Ability to communicate technical ideas clearly and collaborate with cross-functional partners.
Interest in improving search experiences for large-scale consumer products.

As a condition of employment, all successful candidates must be able to establish authorization to work in the United States. For this position, the Company does not provide sponsorship or any immigration-related benefits.