Project Intern – Security Engineering

Job Description

Security Software Engineer Project Intern (Product Security) – 2026 Start (BS/MS) | TikTok

The Tone:
This is an internship at TikTok, likely located in Los Angeles, CA, for students pursuing a degree in a STEM discipline. The company is a leading destination for short-form mobile video, inspiring creativity and bringing joy through its innovative product and global teams. This role is crucial for strengthening the security of TikTok’s products and infrastructure, protecting users by building scalable and secure-by-design systems. It offers a unique opportunity to gain real-world experience and contribute to novel security challenges in a rapidly evolving tech environment.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Type: Temporary
• Location: In-person, Los Angeles, CA
• Pay: $45–$60 hourly
• Team: Missioned to build infrastructures, platforms, and technologies to protect users, products, and infrastructures.
• Mission: To engage in impactful short-term projects that provide a glimpse of professional real-world experience in product security.
• Tech Stack: JavaScript (Node JS), Go, Python, Java, C++, Rust

What You’ll Actually Do
• Assess: Participate in security assessments, including penetration tests, on web or mobile applications.
• Develop: Take part in tooling development projects specifically focused on security, such as code review and API testing.
• Integrate: Develop security tools that will provide benefits for Large Language Model (LLM) integration.
• Secure: Assess the security posture of Multi-Cloud Platform (MCP) servers.
• Evaluate: Examine the security of LLM features that are exposed to the public.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Undergraduate or Postgraduate student currently pursuing a degree/master in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or other STEM disciplines.
• Experience: Security engineering experience such as threat modeling, security mitigation development, security tooling development, or privacy engineering. Expected to be an expert in at least one area among web application security, mobile app security, network security, operating system internals and hardening, applied cryptography, or cloud computing.
• Skills: Ability to write and review code in at least one of the following programming languages: JavaScript (Node JS), Go, Python, Java, C++, Rust. Strong problem-solving skills and excellent debugging / troubleshooting capabilities.
• Bonus: Experience with Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Large Language Models (LLM), or knowledge of distributed systems, edge computing, or high-performance network programming.