Responsibilities
About TikTok
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, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo.
Why Join Us
Creation is the core of TikTok's purpose. Our platform is built to help imaginations thrive. This is doubly true of the teams that make TikTok possible.
Together, we inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we all believe in and aim towards achieving every day.
To us, every challenge, no matter how difficult, is an opportunity; to learn, to innovate, and to grow as one team. Status quo? Never. Courage? Always.
At TikTok, we create together and grow together. That's how we drive impact - for ourselves, our company, and the communities we serve.
Join us.
About USDS
At TikTok, we're committed to a process of continuous innovation and improvement in our user experience and safety controls. We're proud to be able to serve a global community of more than a billion people who use TikTok to creatively express themselves and be entertained, and we're dedicated to giving them a platform that builds opportunity and fosters connection. We also take our responsibility to safeguard our community seriously, both in how we address potentially harmful content and how we protect against unauthorized access to user data.
U.S. Data Security (“USDS”) is a standalone entity of TikTok in the U.S. This new security-first division was created to bring heightened focus and governance to our data protection policies and content assurance protocols to keep U.S. users safe. Our focus is on providing oversight and protection of the TikTok platform and user data in the U.S., so millions of Americans can continue turning to TikTok to learn something new, earn a living, express themselves creatively, or be entertained. The teams within USDS that deliver on this commitment daily span Trust & Safety, Security & Privacy, Engineering, User & Product Ops, Corporate Functions and more.
About the Team
On the TikTok Search Team, you will have the opportunity to develop and apply cutting edge machine learning technologies in real-time large-scale systems, which serve billions of search requests every day. Via advanced NLP and multi-modal models, our projects impact and improve the search experience for hundreds of millions of users globally. We embrace a culture of self-direction, intellectual curiosity, openness, and problem-solving.
We use cutting-edge ML techniques for end-to-end modeling and continuous innovation. The team focuses on building and optimizing distributed systems and machine learning systems, ranging from index compression, retrieving, and ranking algorithms. Our main areas of work include:
1. Exploring state-of-the-art NLP (Natural Language Processing) technologies: From basic tasks like tokenization and Named Entity Recognition (NER) to applications such as query understanding and core relevance, we apply deep learning models across the entire pipeline, each detail filled with challenges.
2. Cross-modal modeling technology: Applying computer vision (CV) and NLP deep learning techniques in search to enhance video retrieval and ranking capabilities.
3. Large-scale streaming machine learning technology: Applying large-scale machine learning to address recommendation issues in search, making search more personalized and understanding user preferences better.
4. Architecture at the scale of hundreds of billions of data: From large-scale offline computation, performance and scheduling optimization in distributed systems, to building highly available, high-throughput, and low-latency online services, we delve deep into research and innovation in all aspects.
What you'll do

• Optimize the search quality to provide TikTok's users with the best search experience
• Combine your understanding of product objectives and take full advantage of modern machine learning and information retrieval techniques to improve search quality and perception
• Build core systems and algorithms development including query understanding, result ranking, query recommendation, system reliability, etc.
• Provide technical leadership to drive search strategy iterations including query understanding, recall & ranking, query recommendation, reliability, etc.
• Provide guidance, regular feedback, and mentorship to team members.

In order to enhance collaboration and cross-functional partnerships, among other things, at this time, our organization follows a hybrid work schedule that requires employees to work in the office 3 days a week, or as directed by their manager/department. We regularly review our hybrid work model, and the specific requirements may change at any time.
Qualifications

• Bachelor or advanced degree in computer science or a related technical discipline
• 7 years of related industry experience
• Experience as tech lead or leading complex and large projects
• Proficient coding skills and strong algorithm & data structure basis
• Experience in one or more of the following areas: NLP, Ranking, Ads, search engine, recommender system, distributed system, and machine learning
• Effective communication and teamwork skills.
• Proficiency in the following languages but not limited to: C/C , Python, Java or Golang

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 usds.accommodations@tiktokusds.com
Job Information
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $224000 - $410000 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.
​
Our company benefits are designed to convey company culture and values, to create an efficient and inspiring work environment, and to support our employees 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.