AI Engineer Intern (TikTok-Client Arch)- 2027 Summer

About the Team

TikTok is a global short video platform covering 150 countries and regions. We aim to discover authentic and interesting moments through TikTok, making life better. The TikTok General Architecture team sits between business and infrastructure. Our mission is to embrace AI, build the most advanced business architecture infrastructure, establish public trust and compliance, focus on resource management and cost optimization, user experience and stability, and improve engineering quality and R&D efficiency. Here, you can both feel how technology empowers upper-layer business and deepen your technical understanding at the architecture level.

Our internship program offers students hands-on experience, industry exposure, and opportunities to apply their knowledge to real-world challenges while building a strong foundation for personal and professional growth. Interns will gain practical experience, explore potential career paths, and participate in social events, learning programs, and development workshops alongside industry professionals.

Responsibilities

• Explore and implement "AI-Native Engineering Infrastructure", treating AI Agents and human developers as first-class citizens of the platform and redefining R&D efficiency.
• Leverage AI to drive automated maintenance, intelligent refactoring, precise diagnosis/repair, CI/CD optimization, and knowledge management across large codebases—transforming the development experience.
• Establish and continuously improve evaluation standards and benchmarking for AI-assisted R&D efficiency, measuring productivity, system stability, and code correctness.
• Design and build application architectures, service interfaces, and supporting frameworks for AI-driven scenarios, providing a solid foundation for upper-layer innovation.
• Stay current with software engineering and systems technologies; evaluate and adopt new tools, frameworks, and methodologies to evolve the team's stack.
• Partner with business R&D and cross-functional teams to understand pain points, deliver highly available platform solutions at scale, and drive adoption with measurable impact.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing an Undergraduate/Master degree in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during the Summer of 2027.
• Hands-on software development experience (coursework, internship, open source, or personal projects); able to independently implement, debug, and deliver features.
• Solid proficiency in at least one mainstream language (e.g., TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, C/C++).
• End-to-end delivery mindset: hands-on practice in at least two of client/application, server, and data layers, with basic understanding of the rest.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: modularity, abstraction, interface design, testing, and maintainability; able to write clear, evolvable code in collaboration.
• Basic system design ability: decompose and model small-to-medium systems; articulate module boundaries, data flow, critical paths, and key trade-offs (performance, complexity, scalability, etc.).
• Understanding of engineering basics (build, dependency management, CI/CD, automation, or deployment), with interest in engineering/infrastructure work.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Project or internship experience building AI applications/agents, or integrating LLMs into developer workflows.
• Experience with engineering productivity, internal tools, developer platforms, or R&D efficiency projects (internship, open source, or coursework).
• Hands-on exposure to CI/CD, build & deployment, automation, or observability tooling, with awareness of design trade-offs.
• Internship experience in full-stack, client, or server-side roles at Internet companies or technology-driven teams.
• Independent understanding of software architecture and system design, with a strong willingness to keep learning.
• Technical writing, open-source contributions, talks, or clear explanation of design trade-offs.
• Deeper project experience in Web, mobile, backend services, data, or infrastructure (a plus, not a requirement).
• Strong problem-solving and code-reading skills; able to navigate unfamiliar codebases and deliver improvements.
• Clear communication and collaboration.
• Interest in or early practice with AI-assisted engineering, and motivation to apply AI in real engineering scenarios.

Pay

The hourly rate range for this position is $45–$45.

Benefits

• Day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, and more.
• 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in the first half of the year, 40 if hired in the second half).
• Housing allowance for interns who are not working 100% remote.

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