Technology

Research Scientist Intern – TikTok Search / Generative AI (LLM) - Global Frontier Tech Recruitment Program - 2027 Start (PhD)

Location
:

San Jose

Employment Type
:

Intern

Job Code
:

A29723

Responsibilities

About the team
The TikTok Search team is responsible for delivering a world-class search experience across TikTok’s global ecosystem. Our mission is to connect users with the most relevant and high-quality content through advanced technologies in search ranking, recommendation, and multimodal understanding. As a campus hire, you will collaborate with top engineers and researchers to solve challenging problems at scale, working across the full stack of search—from content understanding and retrieval to ranking and user experience optimization.

Project Overview, Challenges & Value
With the rapid evolution of pre-trained large models, TikTok Search is advancing toward a new paradigm of AI-native search. Traditional search systems face increasing limitations when handling massive-scale data, multimodal content (video, text, image), and complex user intents. This project focuses on building a next-generation generative search system powered by large models to significantly enhance search intelligence and user experience.

Key focus areas include:

• Integrating large models with ranking systems to improve personalization and relevance.
• Developing end-to-end generative search models based on multimodal pretraining.
• Exploring large model–driven agent frameworks to better support complex, ambiguous, and multi-turn search scenarios.

Key challenges include:

• Personalized ranking: Fully leveraging multimodal signals beyond traditional model capacity.
• Ultra-large-scale retrieval and ranking: Scaling search systems to efficiently handle hundreds of billions of candidates.
• Complex query understanding: Accurately interpreting long, ambiguous, and multi-turn queries to improve user satisfaction.

Project Value:

• Technical Value: Drive innovation in large model–powered search architecture and enable agent-based AI search systems.
• Business Value: Significantly improve search relevance and user satisfaction, strengthening TikTok’s search engagement and long-term growth.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. PhD Internships at our Company aim to provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies.
PhD internships at Our Company provides students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

Responsibilities

• Support the development of AI search systems using large models (LLMs).
• Assist in improving ranking, personalization, and relevance in search.
• Contribute to generative and multimodal search models (video, text, image).
• Explore LLM-based approaches for complex and multi-turn queries.
• Help optimize retrieval and ranking performance at scale.
• Collaborate with mentors and cross-functional teams to prototype and evaluate solutions.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or related fields.
• Solid foundation in machine learning, deep learning, or information retrieval.
• Familiarity with at least one of the following: LLMs, NLP, search/recommendation, or multimodal learning.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Strong problem-solving skills and willingness to learn in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Research experience demonstrated through projects, publications, or open-source contributions.
• Experience with large-scale data, model training, or system implementation.
• Exposure to search, recommendation, or ads systems.
• Experience with multimodal models or generative AI applications.
• Interest in LLMs, agent-based systems, or end-to-end AI applications.

Previous internship or research experience in industry or labs.

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $60- $60.

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Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

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The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

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For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
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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:

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1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;

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2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and

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3. Exercising sound judgment.

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About TikTok

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

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Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is 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 bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.

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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. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. 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.

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Diversity & Inclusion

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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.

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TikTok Accommodation

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

https://tinyurl.com/RA-request