Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (Data-Global E-Commerce-Search) - 2027 Start (PhD)

About the role

The Search E-Commerce team leads the development of TikTok's advanced search algorithm, critical for its global e-commerce platform. Using large-scale machine learning, NLP, CV, and multi-modal technologies, we build a world-class search engine to deliver the best e-commerce search experience to over a billion monthly TikTok users. Our mission is to create a world where "no reasonably priced product is difficult to sell."

This full-time PhD Graduate role offers early-career researchers and engineers the chance to join an engineering team, pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Successful candidates must commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year.

Responsibilities

• Participate in applied research and improvement of the search core algorithm, including:
  • Content understanding: Apply cutting-edge NLP and CV technology, leverage LLM to match the most relevant videos for each search query, and continuously improve search relevance.
  • User Behavior Modeling: Solve recommendation problems in search to enhance personalization while maintaining relevance and better understand users.
  • Video understanding: Use NLP, CV, and LLM for comprehensive video understanding from both the video itself and social network perspectives to improve authority, credibility, and usefulness of search results.
  • Search research and evaluation: Develop new retrieval, ranking, relevance evaluation, query understanding, multimodal search, or LLM application methods and translate research ideas into scalable product improvements.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Currently pursuing or recently completed a PhD degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing, Data Mining, Statistics, or a related technical field.
• Research or practical experience in one or more of the following areas: search, information retrieval, ranking, recommendation systems, natural language processing, multimodal learning, large language models, data mining, or machine learning systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Publications, preprints, patents, open-source contributions, or research projects in search, recommendation, NLP, information retrieval, machine learning, or related areas.
• Experience with large-scale retrieval, ranking, model training, evaluation, online experimentation, distributed systems, or production ML systems.
• Familiarity with relevance evaluation, query understanding, semantic retrieval, vector search, LLM applications, or multimodal search.
• Ability to define ambiguous technical problems, compare solution paths, and communicate trade-offs clearly.
• Interest in applying research to improve search quality, user experience, and product impact at a global scale.

All successful candidates must be authorized to work in the United States; the company does not provide sponsorship or immigration-related benefits for this position.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $153,900 – $300,960 annually. Compensation may vary based on qualifications, skills, competencies, experience, and location. Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include discretionary bonuses, incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits

• Day-one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) savings plan with company match.
• Paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, and life insurance.
• Wellbeing benefits.
• 10 paid holidays per year.
• 10 paid sick days per year.
• 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire, with increasing accruals by tenure).

Benefits may vary depending on employment type and work location. The company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time.

About TikTok

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, with a mission to inspire creativity and bring joy. Our global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, with additional offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

We strive to foster an inclusive environment where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people globally, and our workplace reflects the diverse communities we reach. We are committed to celebrating diverse voices and creating an environment that enables everyone to thrive.