Research Scientist - TikTok Search (Generative AI) - Global Frontier Tech Recruitment Program - 2027 Start (PhD)

What you'll do

• Develop generative and multimodal search models and LLM-based agents for complex queries.
• Improve search ranking, personalization, relevance, and large-scale retrieval performance.
• Collaborate across teams to ship research into production.

What they ask for

• Completing or recently completed a PhD in Software Development, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Solid foundation in machine learning, deep learning, or information retrieval.
• Experience in at least one area: LLMs, search/recommendation systems, ranking, NLP, or multimodal learning.
• Strong programming skills in Python and familiarity with ML frameworks; demonstrated research ability through publications, projects, or internships.

Nice to have

• Experience with large-scale systems, distributed training, ML deployment, search/recommendation/ads ranking, multimodal models, generative AI, LLM fine-tuning, alignment, or agent-based systems.
• Research contributions or strong publications record, including at accredited conferences or journals.

Tools

LLMs, Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, RLHF

AI focus

Builds generative and multimodal AI search using large models, including LLM-based agents for complex and multi-turn queries.