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

Research Scientist Intern (TikTok Recommendation-LLMs, RL, GenAI) - 2026 Start (PhD) at TikTok in San Jose, CA.

Responsibilities

Are you passionate about pushing the boundaries of recommendation systems? Do you dream of working on cutting-edge technologies that shape the way hundreds of millions of people discover content? If so, we invite you to join TikTok's US Core Recommendation Team as a PhD student and embark on an exciting journey of innovation.

Our team's mission is to elevate TikTok's personalized content discovery and user experiences to unprecedented heights. By constantly stretching the limits of deep learning and large-scale system design, we're determined to make remarkable strides in recommendation precision, user involvement, and scalability, all to cater to the needs of hundreds of millions of users in the US.

As a PhD student in our team, you will be at the forefront of developing the next generation of recommendation systems. Your work will be pivotal in enhancing the user experience by delivering more accurate, personalized, and engaging content recommendations. You will have the opportunity to delve into several groundbreaking directions, including but not limited to:

• End-to-End Generative Large Recommendation Systems: We are committed to reimagining the traditional recommendation pipelines. You will explore novel architectures, algorithms, and optimization strategies to break through the limitations of existing systems. By challenging the status quo, you will strive to build more efficient, scalable, and generative recommendation frameworks.
• Ultra-Long Sequence Modeling of User Lifecycle Behavior: Understanding user behavior over an extended period is crucial for providing long-term personalized recommendations. You will focus on modeling the ultra-long sequences of user interactions throughout their lifecycle on TikTok.
• Integrating LLM and Multimodal Technologies for Recommendation: With the abundance of multimodal content (text, image, video, audio) on TikTok, integrating LLM and multimodal technologies into recommendation systems is essential. You will work on leveraging the power of LLMs to understand and process information, and combine it with other multimodal data to enable seamless multimodal-recommendation fusion.
• Posttraining & RL: Exploration of posttraining methods to better align large generative models with business and feed quality needs. Conduct original research on applying RL (e.g., bandit models, policy optimization, offline RL) to recommendation problems (such as diversity & multiobjective fusion problems)
• We are looking for talented individuals to join our team in 2026. As a PhD Intern, you will get unparalleled opportunities for you to kickstart your career, pursue bold ideas and explore limitless growth opportunities. Co-create a future driven by your inspiration with TikTok.
• We will prioritize candidates who are able to commit to work with the team for 12 weeks. Please state your availability for the internship in your resume.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to apply early.
• 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.

Requirements

• 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• 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.

About the Company

The Global Business Solutions (GBS) team is responsible for the revenue growth of the TikTok business, and our teams include Sales, Marketing, Ops, Account Managers, Agency and partnerships, as well as Marketing Science.

At TikTok, our Global Business Solutions (GBS) team plays a key role in generating revenue by promoting our advertising solutions, onboarding new clients, driving ad campaigns, and more. As the TikTok community grows at an unprecedented speed around the world, our GBS team leads groundbreaking projects that are changing the landscape of the advertising industry in real time.

We're seeking an analytically driven, and detail-oriented Client Solutions Manager (CSM) Intern to join our Ecommerce Team. As a CSM, you will partner closely with Client Partners and Client Solutions Managers to drive revenue by identifying opportunities, leveraging data insights, and delivering consultative solutions for advertisers.

This role centers on client education, relationship growth, data analysis, and campaign success. You will provide strategic recommendations to both clients and internal teams, ensuring campaigns achieve business objectives while optimizing long-term partnerships. Success in this role requires strong data analytics skills, adaptability in a fast-paced environment, and a test-and-learn mindset to uncover the best solutions.