[Remote] Software Engineer Intern (Recommendation Infrastructure) - 2026 Start (PhD)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. The Recommendation Architecture Team is seeking interns to help build and optimize the architecture for recommendation products, enhancing user experience and contributing to the organization's future plans and technologies. Responsibilities Build and maintain high performance online services for TikTok recommendation system to support various types of products, such as For You Feed, E-commerce, Social, etc Build extremely efficient and reliable data pipelines for candidates generation, profile generation, training examples generation, realtime online training, etc Build globalized large-scale recommendation system Design and develop high performance computing frameworks and storage systems Skills Currently pursuing PhD in Computer Science or a related technical discipline Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026 Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment Experience in programming, included but not limited to, the following programming languages: C, C++, Java or Python Effective communication skills, self-driven learner, a sense of ownership Projects or research experienced in at least one area of the following areas: personalized recommendations, search engine, machine learning, distributed storage system, big data frameworks is a plus Graduating December 2026 onwards with the intent to return to degree program after the completion of the internship Benefits Health insurance Life insurance Wellbeing benefits 10 paid holidays per year Paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year) Housing allowance Company Overview TikTok is a short-form video entertainment app and social network platform. It is a sub-organization of ByteDance. It was founded in 2003, and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA, with a workforce of 10001+ employees. Its website is Company H1B Sponsorship TikTok has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 979 in 2025, 601 in 2024, 387 in 2023, 322 in 2022, 133 in 2021, 72 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.