(General Hire) Research Scientist Graduate - TikTok Recommendation - 2025 Start (PhD)

$137,750 - $237,500/Yr

Tiktok - San Jose, CA

Full-time - Entry Level

San Jose, CA

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services

About the position

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, and our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. Our global headquarters are located in Los Angeles and Singapore, with additional offices in major cities around the world. At TikTok, we believe that creation is at the core of our purpose, and we strive to help imaginations thrive. This philosophy extends to our teams, where we work together to overcome challenges and drive impact for ourselves, our company, and the communities we serve. The genAI team is focused on empowering content understanding and generation within TikTok's business framework. We are engaged in developing foundational models that leverage computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP) to enhance our platform's capabilities. Our work includes multi-modality pretraining, large language models, image and video generation, and more. We are seeking strong research scientists who are graduating in 2025 and are eager to deepen their business understanding while building scalable, high-performance models and systems. Collaboration across disciplines and global teams is essential as we pursue excellence in our research and business metrics. As a research scientist, you will be responsible for conducting cutting-edge research and development in areas such as CV, NLP, multi-modality, and generative modeling. You will stay updated on state-of-the-art (SoTA) advancements in these fields and translate innovative ideas into production-ready solutions. Your role will encompass the entire life cycle of model development, from training and deployment to maintenance and application in real-world business scenarios.

Responsibilities

• Conducting development and research on cutting-edge computer vision (CV), natural language processing (NLP), multi-modality, large language models (LLM), and generative modeling.
• Following state-of-the-art (SoTA) progress in relevant fields and transforming ideas into production.
• Managing the life-cycle of model development, including model training, deployment, maintenance, and application in business scenarios.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, or a related field.
• Experience in one or more areas of computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning.
• Solid knowledge and experience with at least one major deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, MXNet, Caffe/Caffe2).
• Familiarity with deep neural network architectures such as transformer, SSM, CNN, RNN, and LSTM.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work collaboratively in cross-functional teams.

Nice-to-haves

• Degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or related fields.
• Authors with publications in top-tier venues such as SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR.

Benefits

• 100% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, approximately 75% premium coverage for dependents, and a Health Savings Account (HSA) with a company match.
• Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans.
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options for Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care.
• 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.
• 12 weeks of paid Parental leave and 8 weeks of paid Supplemental Disability.
• Mental and emotional health benefits through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Lyra.
• 401K company match, gym, and cellphone service reimbursements.