[Remote] Research Scientist Intern (TikTok Recommendation-LLMs, RL, GenAI) - 2026 Start (PhD)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, and they are seeking a PhD student to join their US Core Recommendation Team. The role focuses on developing innovative recommendation systems that enhance user experiences through cutting-edge technologies and algorithms. Responsibilities Conduct in-depth research and development in the aforementioned groundbreaking directions, designing and implementing innovative algorithms to enhance recommendation performance and accuracy Analyze large-scale user behavior data and content data to gain insights and drive model improvements Participate in the deployment and evaluation of the developed recommendation systems in real-world scenarios, ensuring their practical effectiveness Collaborate with cross-disciplinary teams, including infrastructure engineers, PMO, and researchers, to create advanced systems that improve recommendation relevance, diversity, and user engagement Skills Currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Statistics, or a related field, with a focus on recommendation systems, natural language processing, or multimodal learning Strong theoretical foundation and hands-on research experience in relevant areas Proficiency in Python and familiarity with ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow Solid foundation in data structures, algorithms, and analytical and problem solving skills First-author publications in top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, CVPR, or KDD Experience with large-scale machine learning systems or applied research in industry Prior work or research integrating LLMs or multimodal models into real-world applications Familiarity with reinforcement learning, bandit algorithms, or offline RL for recommender systems 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 Overview TikTok is a short-form video entertainment app and social network platform. It is a sub-organization of ByteDance. It was founded in 2003, and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA, with a workforce of 10001+ employees. Its website is Company H1B Sponsorship TikTok has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 979 in 2025, 601 in 2024, 387 in 2023, 322 in 2022, 133 in 2021, 72 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.