TikTok · 1 week ago
Online Architecture Research Intern (TikTok-Generalized Arch)- 2026 Start (PhD)
Seattle, WA
Internship
Onsite
Intern
Start in 2026 SummerTikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, and they are seeking a PhD Intern for their General Architecture team. The role involves contributing to research and optimization of TikTok’s planet-scale business architecture while collaborating with various teams to address real-world challenges.
Content CreatorsContent DiscoveryMedia and EntertainmentSocial MediaVideo
Responsibilities
Contribute to research and optimization of TikTok’s planet-scale business architecture, supporting billions of users, globally distributed ultra-large-scale data centers, and microservice clusters with millions of services
Assist in data modeling and algorithmic optimization to address key challenges in large-scale infrastructure and business architecture, including but not limited to capacity forecasting and planning, service and data placement optimization, traffic scheduling optimization, and risk prediction
Under the guidance of mentors, transform research insights into prototypes, tools, or frameworks, and explore their applicability in selected business scenarios
Participate in analyzing research data, summarizing experimental results, and contributing to academic publications in top-tier conferences/journals
Collaborate with architecture, platform, and business teams to understand real-world production challenges and explore potential optimization opportunities
Qualification
Required
Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, or related fields
Solid research background in distributed systems, large-scale system optimization, or AI for Systems
Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026
Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to model planet-scale, complex business and infrastructure systems, abstract key variables and constraints, and clearly articulate solutions through rigorous logical reasoning and effective communication
Familiarity with optimization algorithms such as integer programming, dynamic programming, graph optimization, heuristic search, or reinforcement learning, with the ability to apply them to large-scale optimization problems
Proficiency in at least one mainstream programming language (e.g., Go, Java, C++, Python), with the capability to build research prototypes
Ability to quickly learn and deeply understand complex architectural patterns, while leveraging AI tools and automation methods to improve research and development efficiency
Preferred
Experience in data modeling and analysis for large-scale systems or business architectures
Research publications or submissions to top-tier conferences/journals such as OSDI, SOSP, NSDI, SoCC, SIGCOMM, KDD, NeurIPS
Hands-on project experience in distributed systems, resource scheduling, or architecture optimization (including academic projects or previous internships)
Familiarity with performance and optimization challenges in cross-data-center or cross-region architectures
Benefits
Day one access to health insurance
Life insurance
Wellbeing benefits
10 paid holidays per year
Paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year)
Housing allowance
Company
TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video entertainment app and social network platform. It is a sub-organization of ByteDance.
Founded in 2003
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
TikTok has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (979)
2024 (601)
2023 (387)
2022 (322)
2021 (133)
2020 (72)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageLeadership Team
N Ali Mohamed
CEO
Blake Chandlee
VP Global Business Solutions
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