Software Engineer Intern – Machine Learning, Ads Systems

Job Description

Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Lead Ads) – 2026 Summer (BS/MS) | TikTok

The Tone:
This is an internship at TikTok, offered across various global locations with potential for in-person or hybrid work models. TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, aiming to inspire creativity and bring joy through its product. This role is within the Lead Ads team, which is vital for empowering TikTok’s global monetization, a multi-billion-dollar business. The intern will contribute to pushing the boundaries of large-scale ad delivery systems and leading innovations in TikTok’s personalized online advertising.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Type: Full-time
• Location: Various locations (potentially in-person or hybrid)
• Pay: $45–$60 hourly
• Team: Lead Ads team, part of the Global Monetization Product and Technology organization
• Mission: Empower TikTok’s global monetization through efficient lead ad delivery and innovate personalized online advertising.
• Tech Stack: Go, C/C++, Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, MXNet, Linux

What You’ll Actually Do
• System Development: Participate in the development of a large-scale Ads system.
• Model Optimization: Optimize relevance models and strategies, such as semantic matching models, active learning, text/photo/video multi-modal models, and ranking strategies.
• Algorithm Development: Participate in the development and iteration of Ads algorithms by using Machine Learning.
• NLP & Query Understanding: Work on Natural Language Processing (NLP) capability improvement and query understanding, including query classification, seq2seq, Named Entity Recognition (NER), knowledge graph, and bidword optimization.
• Performance Estimation: Work on CTR/CVR model estimation accuracy, data analysis, modeling, and feature engineering.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Currently pursuing a BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or other relevant majors.
• Experience: Related work experience; commitment to a 12-week full-time work period during Summer or Fall 2026.
• Skills: Solid programming skills in Go, C/C++, or Python; familiarity with basic data structures and algorithms; experience with Linux development environment; good analytical thinking capability; essential knowledge and skills in statistics; good theoretical grounding in machine and deep learning concepts and techniques (CNN/RNN/LSTM); familiarity with the architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet).
• Bonus: Experience with Ads systems, recommendation systems, searching, or ranking systems.