Software Engineer Intern – Search Engineering

Job Description

Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Data-Search-TikTok Recommendation) – 2026 Summer (BS/MS) | TikTok

The Tone:
This is an internship at TikTok. TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, with a mission to inspire creativity and bring joy globally. The company builds an innovative product designed to help people authentically express themselves, discover, and connect. This role is within the Search Engineering Team, which is responsible for building and owning TikTok’s search engine. Interns will have the opportunity to build full-stack search engine systems and combine information retrieval technology with modern machine learning methods to provide the best search experience.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Type: Full-time
• Location: Undisclosed (potential for housing allowance for non-remote roles)
• Pay: $45–$60 hourly
• Team: Search Engineering Team
• Mission: Improve TikTok’s search engine core algorithm by applying machine learning and information retrieval technologies to provide the best user experience.
• Tech Stack: NLP, CV, LLM, recommender system, distributed system, machine learning, information retrieval technology

What You’ll Actually Do
• Algorithm Improvement: Participate in enhancing the search core algorithm.
• Content Understanding: Apply industry-cutting NLP and CV technology, including LLMs, to match relevant videos for search queries and continuously improve search relevance.
• User Behavior Modeling: Address recommendation challenges within search to personalize results and better understand user preferences.
• Video Understanding: Comprehensively use NLP, CV, and LLMs for improved video understanding from the video content itself and its social network context, to enhance the authority, credibility, and usefulness of search results.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience: Must be able to commit to a 12-week full-time work period during Summer 2026. Experience in one or more of the following areas: NLP, Ranking, Ads, search engine, recommender system, distributed system, and machine learning.
• Skills: Proficient coding skills, strong algorithm & data structure basis, effective communication, and teamwork skills.
• Bonus: Demonstrated software engineering experience from previous internships, work experience, coding competitions, or publications, along with high levels of creativity and quick problem-solving capabilities.