Recommendation Algorithm Team Intern

Job Description

About the Company (TikTok)

TikTok is a leading global destination for short-form mobile video, with a core mission to inspire creativity and bring joy. The company’s global headquarters are located in Los Angeles and Singapore, and it maintains additional offices in major cities worldwide including New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

TikTok emphasizes fostering an environment that inspires creativity through an innovative product designed for authentic self-expression, discovery, and connection. This is made possible by its global and diverse teams. The company values curiosity, humility, and a strong desire to make an impact in a rapidly growing tech environment, promoting a resilient “Always Day 1” mindset where every challenge is viewed as an opportunity to learn and innovate collaboratively.

Diversity & Inclusion: TikTok is committed to building an inclusive workplace where employees are valued for their diverse skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. The company strives to reflect the many communities its platform reaches by celebrating diverse voices and creating an inclusive environment.

Accommodation: TikTok is dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations throughout its recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, those with sincerely held religious beliefs, individuals who are pregnant, or for other reasons protected by applicable laws. Support for accommodation requests is available.

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About the Job: Recommendation Algorithm Team Intern (2026)

This internship position is with TikTok’s Recommendation Algorithm Team, which plays a central and critical role in driving product decisions and platform growth for the company. The team consists of machine learning researchers and engineers focused on supporting, innovating on, and deploying production recommendation models to achieve significant product impact. The team environment is characterized as fast-paced, collaborative, and impact-driven.

The internship program for 2026 aims to provide students with valuable industry exposure and practical, hands-on experience, encouraging them to transform their ambitions into tangible opportunities at TikTok. Successful candidates are expected to commit to working with the team for a minimum of 12 weeks during their internship. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and early application is encouraged.

Responsibilities:

• Conducting development and research on cutting-edge technologies in areas such as Computer Vision (CV), Natural Language Processing (NLP), multi-modality, Large Language Models (LLM), and generative modeling.
• Following the State-of-the-Art (SoTA) progress in relevant research fields and effectively transforming these advanced ideas into production-ready solutions.
• Engaging in the full life-cycle model development, encompassing stages from model training, through deployment and ongoing maintenance, up to the integration and utilization of these models in various business scenarios.

Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a PhD Degree.
• Demonstrated experience in one or more areas of computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning.
• Possession of solid knowledge and hands-on experience with at least one major deep learning framework, such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, or MXNet.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, along with the ability to work effectively and collaboratively within cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• A degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or closely related fields.
• Graduating in December 2025 onwards, with the clear intent to return to their degree program upon the completion of the internship.
• Authorship of publications in top-tier academic venues, including but not limited to SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR.

Job Information (Compensation and Benefits):

• Compensation: The hourly rate for this Campus Intern position is set at $60 per hour.
• Benefits: Interns receive day-one access to a comprehensive suite of benefits, including health insurance, life insurance, and wellbeing benefits.
• Paid Time Off: Interns are entitled to 10 paid holidays per year. They also receive paid sick time: 56 hours if hired in the first half of the year, or 40 hours if hired in the second half of the year.
• Housing Allowance: Interns who are not working 100% remotely may be eligible for a housing allowance.
• Disclaimer: The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without prior notice.

For Los Angeles County (Unincorporated) Candidates:

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in compliance with all relevant federal, state, and local laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. The company acknowledges that certain criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with specific job duties, potentially leading to the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment. These duties include:
• Interacting with and occasionally having unsupervised contact with both internal and external clients and/or colleagues.
• Appropriately handling and managing confidential information, including proprietary and trade secret information, and access to information technology systems.
• Exercising sound judgment in job-related situations.