Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Risk & Integrity) - 2027 Summer

Join the USDS Platform and Community Integrity (PaCI) team, the architectural backbone of TikTok's Risk & Integrity in the US. We drive end-to-end integrity for TikTok and its expanding ecosystem, including Lemon8 and emerging affiliate platforms, by leveraging localized US data and state-of-the-art AI/LLM capabilities. Our internship program offers hands-on experience, industry exposure, and opportunities to tackle 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

• Work with large-scale data, logs, metrics, or experiments to understand user search behavior and improve product or system quality.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, data science, and machine learning partners to define requirements and deliver project milestones.
• Write clear, maintainable code and documentation for assigned workstreams.
• Communicate progress, risks, and learnings with mentors and stakeholders throughout the internship.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Able to commit to a 12-week internship during Summer 2027.
• Solid foundation in Machine Learning; proficient in applying Transformer and GNN architectures to solve large-scale integrity challenges with social graph and behavior sequence data.
• Experience designing model evaluation systems that balance technical performance with product goals.
• Strong engineering and coding skills. Proficient in at least one language among Python, C++, or Go; familiar with distributed computing (e.g., Spark, Flink) and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch).

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Agentic AI Experience: Hands-on experience building LLM-based Agents capable of task planning, tool-use, or closed-loop autonomous decision-making.
• LLM Security & Alignment: Experience in LLM Post-training or Fine-tuning (e.g., SFT, RLVR, RLHF) to optimize models for specific risk domains like fraud intent recognition or malicious redirection.
• Multimodal Expertise: Proven track record in video understanding or multimodal representation; ability to integrate visual, audio, and textual features to solve complex behavioral modeling challenges.

About USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps, and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

The company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week to enable greater speed, alignment, and agility.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product helps people authentically express themselves, discover, and connect. We strive to do great things with great people, leading with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make an impact. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We embrace an "Always Day 1" mindset, achieving meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless.

Pay

The hourly rate for this position is $45.

Benefits

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