Software Engineering Intern, Machine Learning, Lead Ads Team (2026) – Machine Learning

Job Description

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

The Tone:
This is a full-time internship at TikTok, a global organization that is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy globally. This role supports the company’s billion-dollar global monetization business by efficiently delivering lead ads. The intern will contribute to pushing the boundaries of large-scale ad delivery systems and innovating TikTok’s personalized online advertising.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Type: Full-time
• Pay: $45–$60 hourly
• Team: Lead Ads team within the Global Monetization Product and Technology organization
• Mission: Push the boundaries of large-scale ads delivery systems and lead the innovations of TikTok’s personalized online advertising.
• Tech Stack: Go, C/C++, Python, Linux, TensorFlow, PyTorch, MXNet

What You’ll Actually Do
• Develop: Participate in the development of large-scale Ads systems and related algorithms.
• Optimize: Be responsible for relevance model and strategy optimization, including semantic matching, active learning, multi-model approaches, and ranking.
• Improve: Work on Natural Language Processing (NLP) capability improvement and query understanding, such as classification, seq2seq, Named Entity Recognition (NER), knowledge graph, and bidword optimization.
• Estimate: Work on CTR/CVR model estimation accuracy, data analysis, modeling, and feature engineering.
• Research: Research and develop Ads pacing algorithms and ads traffic control mechanisms.
• Partner: Partner with product managers and the product strategy & operation team to define product strategy and features.

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