About the role#
The Search team builds systems that help users find relevant, reliable, and engaging content across TikTok. You will work across search retrieval, ranking, recommendation signals, query understanding, relevance, infrastructure, and product experiences. This role combines large-scale machine learning, data-driven product development, and distributed systems to improve search quality for a global user base.
What you'll do#
- 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.
What you'll need#
- Currently pursuing a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Ability to commit to a 12-week full-time work term.
- Proficient coding skills and a strong basis in algorithms and data structures.
- Effective communication and teamwork skills.
- Experience in one or more of the following: NLP, ranking, ads, search engines, recommender systems, distributed systems, or machine learning.
- Experience with search, recommendation, information retrieval, content understanding, or data mining projects is preferred.
- Familiarity with databases, data pipelines, experimentation, or large-scale backend services.
- Experience using data to investigate product, user, or system problems.
- Interest in improving search experiences for large-scale consumer products.
Location & details#
- Location: San Jose, California, United States.
- Modality: On-site.
- Employment: Full-time internship.
- Compensation: $60 per hour.
- Review 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.
