Machine Learning Scientist Graduate (TikTok Trust and Safety) - 2027 Start (PhD)

Responsibilities

• Develop state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodality models and algorithms to protect the platform and users from content and behaviors that violate community guidelines and related regulations.
• Participate in the development of cutting‑edge content understanding models to improve recognition of violated content on TikTok.
• Continuously optimize the distributed model training framework.
• Collaborate with product teams to define business objectives and improve trust and safety strategy.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to deploy machine learning models, design online model workflows, and implement serving pipelines at scale.
• Collaborate with the data scientist team to understand key challenges and propose data‑driven strategies.
• Work on state‑of‑the‑art content understanding techniques, including unimodal/multimodal content classifiers, learning models, reinforcement learning models, and Large Language Models.
• May be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis (images, video, text related to everyday life, bullying, hate speech, child safety, depictions of harm to self and others, harm to animals).

Qualifications

• Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a PhD degree in computer science or a related discipline.
• Hands‑on or academic experience in one or more of the following areas: Machine learning, Large Language Models, Recommendation Systems, and related areas.
• Strong coding skills.
• Curiosity towards new technologies and entrepreneurship, good communication and teamwork skills.

Pay

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $153,900 – $300,960 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package; the role may be eligible for additional 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.
• 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).
• The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.