Research Intern (AI-Native Databases) - 2027 Start (PhD)

About the Team

Join ByteDance’s database R&D team, where you’ll build and own cutting‑edge database products supporting ByteDance’s global infrastructure. Our diverse portfolio includes relational databases, distributed caches, key‑value stores, document databases, graph databases, wide‑column stores, search engines, and multi‑model databases.

About the Role

We are building the next‑generation AI‑native database systems—intelligent, multimodal, and designed for the era of large models. Our systems are not just data stores; they’re reasoning engines, retrieval platforms, and real‑time memory for AI agents. As a Software Engineer or Researcher, you will be at the forefront of rethinking how databases work when built from the ground up for AI workloads. You’ll help create infrastructure that powers intelligent systems across TikTok, CapCut, and future applications that haven’t been imagined yet.

This is an internship for PhD students. PhD internships at ByteDance provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, as well as to the organization’s future plans and emerging technologies. The internship experience blends hands‑on learning, community‑building, professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; please state your availability (start date, end date) in your résumé.

Responsibilities

• Develop kernel modules or features for AI‑native database systems.
• Solve unique, large‑scale, highly complex cloud infrastructure problems.
• Partner with product managers and engineers from different teams to build backend support for AI‑native database service products.
• Participate in technical discussions related to the team’s product and engineering work.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Knowledge of database kernels, distributed systems, query processing and optimization, and multi‑threaded programming.
• Experience coding in C/C++, Go, Java, or Python.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated software engineering experience from previous internships, work experience, coding competitions, or publications.
• Curiosity towards new technologies and entrepreneurship.
• High levels of creativity and quick problem‑solving capabilities.
• Experience with open‑source systems such as Faiss, Milvus, DuckDB, ClickHouse, TiKV, RocksDB.
• Publications at top‑tier conferences (e.g., SIGMOD, VLDB, NeurIPS, MLSys, ICDE).
• Familiarity with GCP, AWS, or Azure’s database and AI integration strategies.
• Prior contributions to retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), memory‑augmented models, or self‑tuning database components.

Pay

Compensation (Hourly) – Campus Intern: $57‑$57 per hour (range for the selected city).

Benefits

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

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products—including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut, Pico, and China‑specific platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua—ByteDance makes it easier and more fun for people to connect, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect. Our global, diverse teams make that possible. As ByteDancers we lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company, fostering an “Always Day 1” mindset that drives meaningful breakthroughs.

Diversity & Inclusion

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. We celebrate diverse voices and strive to reflect the many communities we serve.

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance provides reasonable accommodations in recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs, or other reasons protected by law. Requests can be made at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request.