About the role#
The Search team builds systems that help users find relevant, reliable, and engaging content on TikTok. This work involves search retrieval, ranking, recommendation signals, query understanding, and infrastructure. You will work with large-scale machine learning, data-driven product development, and distributed systems to improve search quality for a global user base. This is a 12-week, full-time internship for PhD students starting in 2027.
What you'll do#
- Support the design, implementation, testing, and iteration of search features, services, and tools with guidance from mentors.
- Analyze large-scale data, logs, metrics, and experiments to understand user search behavior.
- Improve product and system quality based on your findings.
- Collaborate with engineering, product, data science, and machine learning teams to define requirements and deliver project milestones.
- Write clear, maintainable code and documentation for your workstreams.
- Communicate progress, risks, and learnings to stakeholders throughout the program.
What you'll need#
- Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Development, or a related technical field.
- Ability to commit to 12 weeks of full-time work.
- Proficient coding skills and a strong foundation in algorithms and data structures.
- Experience in one or more areas such as NLP, ranking, ads, search engines, recommender systems, distributed systems, or machine learning.
- Familiarity with databases, 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 work well with cross-functional partners.
- Interest in improving search experiences for large-scale consumer products.
Location & details#
- Location: San Jose, California.
- Modality: On-site.
- Employment: Full-time internship.
- Compensation: $60 per hour.
- Process: Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
About TikTok
TikTok operates as an entertainment provider. The company maintains a global presence with offices in cities including Los Angeles, Singapore, New York, London, and Tokyo. It employs over 92,000 people. The organization is privately held.
How to get in at TikTok
Landing an internship at TikTok requires speed because early applicants often get seen before the pile grows. Intern Insider sends an instant alert the moment a role matching your target is published anywhere, so you can apply among the first. This gives you a better chance of your resume being reviewed while the team is still actively filling the position. You should aim to be one of the first people to submit your materials. Reaching out to the right person can also improve your chances of getting a response. Intern Insider surfaces the recruiters behind the company roles so you can contact them directly to ask about the role or a referral. This direct approach often works better than waiting for a response from a general application queue.
