What are the responsibilities and job description for the Research Scientist Graduate (DPU & AI Infra) - 2026 Start (PhD) position at ByteDance?
Responsibilities
About the Team
The ByteDance DPU (Data Processing Unit) team is building the foundational computing infrastructure for ByteDance and Volcano Engine Public Cloud. Our mission is to advance the architecture, development, and research of next-generation software-hardware technologies across compute, networking, and storage for cloud and AI computing.
Our Technology Stack Spans:
We are looking for talented individuals to join our team in 2026. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Launch your career where inspiration is infinite at ByteDance.
Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by end of year 2026. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.
Responsibilities
Minimum Qualifications
By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://jobs.bytedance.com/en/legal/privacy
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $156000 - $316800 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.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.
Why Join ByteDance
Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.
As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
ByteDance 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 ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. 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.
Reasonable Accommodation
ByteDance 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://tinyurl.com/RA-request
About the Team
The ByteDance DPU (Data Processing Unit) team is building the foundational computing infrastructure for ByteDance and Volcano Engine Public Cloud. Our mission is to advance the architecture, development, and research of next-generation software-hardware technologies across compute, networking, and storage for cloud and AI computing.
Our Technology Stack Spans:
- Cloud virtualization & hypervisors
- High-performance user-space network protocols (DPDK, RDMA, etc.)
- High-speed interconnect and virtual switching
- Distributed storage acceleration
- GPU virtualization and scheduling for AI/ML workloads
We are looking for talented individuals to join our team in 2026. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Launch your career where inspiration is infinite at ByteDance.
Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by end of year 2026. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.
Responsibilities
- Design and develop DPU network software with a focus on high performance, low latency, and reliability.
- Collaborate with hardware teams to build software-hardware co-design solutions for networking and storage acceleration.
- Explore AI/ML infrastructure acceleration, leveraging DPUs, GPUs, and custom hardware to optimize distributed training and inference.
- Drive end-to-end performance optimization, from OS kernels and drivers to user-space runtime systems.
- Contribute to architecture design, technical proposals, and long-term research directions.
Minimum Qualifications
- Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a PhD degree in related fields with research training and publications.
- 2 years of relevant industry experience (exception for Ph.D. with strong background).
- Proficiency in C/C development and debugging.
- Strong Linux systems development experience.
- Solid understanding of compute, network architecture, and operating systems.
- Background in at least one of: software-hardware co-design, distributed systems, high-performance networking, or AI/ML systems.
- Experience with software-hardware co-design (networking, storage, or distributed compute).
- Hands-on experience with network virtualization (OVS, SR-IOV, eBPF).
- Familiarity with DPDK and high-performance user-space networking.
- Bonus points for hardware acceleration experience, FPGA/ASIC/GPU/CUDA
- Bonus points for experience with NCCL Collectives along with AI communication patterns and parallelization techniques
- Proven experience designing and building AI/ML infrastructure related but not limited to inference kv cache system, data preprocessing system.
By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://jobs.bytedance.com/en/legal/privacy
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $156000 - $316800 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.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
- Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
- Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
- Exercising sound judgment.
Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.
Why Join ByteDance
Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.
As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
ByteDance 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 ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. 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.
Reasonable Accommodation
ByteDance 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://tinyurl.com/RA-request
Salary : $156,000 - $316,800