Machine Learning Engineer Intern (Foundation Model Applications)- 2024 Off-Cycle (PHD)

Responsibilities

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok has global offices including Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo.

Why Join Us
Creation is the core of TikTok's purpose. Our platform is built to help imaginations thrive. This is doubly true of the teams that make TikTok possible.
Together, we inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we all believe in and aim towards achieving every day.
To us, every challenge, no matter how difficult, is an opportunity; to learn, to innovate, and to grow as one team. Status quo? Never. Courage? Always.
At TikTok, we create together and grow together. That's how we drive impact - for ourselves, our company, and the communities we serve.
Join us.

We are a pioneering Machine Learning team at TikTok, committed to spearheading innovation in leveraging cutting-edge technologies in foundation models to enhance TikTok's experience, an avenue that our organization sees as a very promising future direction. Our team culture cherishes the "First Principles Thinking" approach, and we deeply value understanding things at their core and focusing on delivering solid, well-grounded solutions.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2024. Internships at TikTok aim to offer students industry exposure and hands-on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at TikTok.

This Internship Program runs for 10-24 weeks. Candidates can also apply for both Off-cycle Intern position and Program Intern position.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to apply early. Candidates can apply to a maximum of TWO positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to TikTok and its affiliates' jobs globally.

Candidates can apply to a maximum of two positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to TikTok and its affiliates' jobs globally. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early.

Responsibilities
- Understand and optimize TikTok's industry-leading recommendation system
- Deploy, prompt, and fine-tune cutting-edge foundation models
- Apply foundation models to enhance TikTok's recommendation system and product offerings, improving the experience of billion-scale consumers and creators
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product managers, data scientists, and product engineers, to form and solve problems, refine machine learning algorithms, and communicate results
- Regularly run A/B tests, perform analyses, and iterate algorithms based on results
- Work with infrastructure teams on improving the efficiency and stability of machine learning systems

Qualifications

- Currently pursuing PHD degree
- Graduating December 2024 onwards with the intent to return to degree program after the completion of the internship
- Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2024
- Hands-on experience in one or more of the following areas: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Recommender Systems, Data Mining, Natural Language Processing, or Computer Vision
- Strong programming skills in Python and/or C/C++, and a deep understanding of data structures and algorithms
- Familiar with architecture and implementation of at least one mainstream machine learning programming framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch/MXNet)
- Excellent communication and teamwork skills, and a passion for learning new techniques and tackling challenging problems.
- Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment.

Preferred Qualifications:
- Prior research/industry experience with deploying, prompting, and fine-tuning foundation models
- Prior research/industry experience with applied machine learning, or large-scale recommendation systems
- Publications at major AI-related conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, IJCAI, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, KDD, ICDM, SDM, RecSys, or simply on arXiv but with large impact
- Strong track record in AI-related competitions, or participation in public/open-source AI-related projects of high visibility
- A strong passion for First Principles Thinking

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to crea