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Jobs · Engineering · California

Senior Software Engineer, C/C++ SDK Performance Optimization

TikTok · San Jose, CA · 2 mo ago
On-siteEngineering$218k–$388k/yrFull-time

About the role

We own the Effect SDK powering TikTok's camera and creation experience — the system behind every filter, AR effect, and visual effect used by hundreds of millions of creators every day. This role sits at the business architecture layer of a self-developed rendering engine, partnering closely with rendering, algorithm, and camera pipeline teams to deliver smooth, low-power effect experiences across a massive range of mobile devices.

Responsibilities

  • Drive end-to-end experience optimization of the effect pipeline during shooting — diagnose and resolve frame drops, jank, thermal throttling, and power consumption issues on real user devices.
  • Profile the full camera→effect→render→encode pipeline; identify bottlenecks across CPU, GPU, memory, and thread scheduling, and land measurable improvements.
  • Collaborate with the rendering engine team to understand and leverage low-level capabilities, and with the on-device algorithm team to co-optimize model integration and execution.
  • Build and evolve the business architecture of the Effect SDK (Native, cross-platform for iOS & Android), turning product requirements into robust, maintainable modules.
  • Localize and fix technical problems and bugs reported from production, with a strong ownership mindset.
  • Learn new techniques quickly, communicate clearly, and collaborate well across teams.

Requirements

  • B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science with 4+ years of relevant experience.
  • Proficient in C/C++.
  • Strong interest in performance on mobile devices — you enjoy digging into profilers and chasing down the last millisecond.
  • Familiar with iOS and/or Android development, and has experience in video and image processing related applications on mobile phones.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Hands-on experience with mobile profiling tools (Xcode Instruments, Perfetto / Systrace, Android GPU Inspector, RenderDoc, etc.).
  • Experience optimizing frame rate stability, memory footprint, thermal, or battery consumption in a consumer-scale mobile app.
  • Familiarity with camera pipelines (AVFoundation / Camera2 / CameraX) or real-time video processing.
  • Experience with AR, game engine, or real-time graphics development.
  • Experience integrating on-device inference frameworks (CoreML, TNN, MNN, NCNN, TFLite) and optimizing their runtime cost.
  • Basic understanding of graphics rendering APIs (OpenGL ES / Metal / Vulkan); shader programming experience is a plus.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $218,400 - $387,600 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work; this 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).

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