Research Scientist Intern (Distributed NoSQL Database Systems) - 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.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. 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. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and professional development events, and collaboration with industry experts.

Responsibilities

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

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or other related discipline.
• Knowledge of database kernel, distributed system, query processing and optimization, multi-threaded programming.
• Experience coding in C/C++, Golang, Java, Python.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated software engineering experience from previous internship, 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 conferences (e.g., SIGMOD, VLDB, NeurIPS, MLSys, ICDE).
• Familiarity with GCP, AWS, or Azure’s database and AI integration strategies.
• Prior contributions to RAG, memory-augmented models, or self-tuning database components.

Pay

The hourly rate range for this position is $57-$57.

Benefits

• Day one access to health insurance, life insurance, and wellbeing benefits.
• 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).
• Eligibility for housing allowance if 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, and Pico, as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover, and connect—and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity, and enrich life. As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make an impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users.