About the role#
This internship focuses on the Global E-Commerce Content Recommendation team. We are rebuilding the recommendation stack for TikTok Shop using large language model foundations. You will work on an industrial system that serves a billion-scale user base across short-video, livestream, and product scenarios. This is a full-time, on-site role based in Seattle.
What you'll do#
- Scale recommendation models, including LLMs, to billions of parameters while maintaining strict latency requirements.
- Develop one-stage generative retrieval by tokenizing item spaces and training autoregressive models to generate user recommendations.
- Integrate world knowledge using large models to improve latent interest mining and reasoning over long-term user intent.
- Optimize training and inference by writing custom CUDA or Triton fused kernels and performing deep-learning framework optimizations.
- Use coding agents to automate feature mining, experiment configuration, and pipeline generation.
- Conduct original research on open problems like long-term value modeling, repurchase, and retention.
What you'll need#
- Current enrollment in a PhD program for Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field.
- Strong fundamentals in machine learning, algorithms, and data structures.
- Ability to write clean, efficient, and reproducible code.
- Deep research or engineering experience in at least one area: LLMs, foundation models, NLP, CV, RL, or recommendation/search/ads systems.
- Ability to define and decompose ambiguous problems without standard answers.
- Experience with LLM post-training, agent-system construction, or inference acceleration is preferred.
- A track record of publications at major venues, high-quality open-source contributions, or success in technical competitions like Kaggle or ACM-ICPC.
Location & details#
- Location: Seattle, Washington, United States.
- Modality: On-site.
- Employment: Full-time internship.
- Term: 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.
