Senior Research Engineer - AI-Native Online Datastore Systems

TikTok
San Jose, CA
Category Engineering
Job Description
Role Overview

Design, build, and govern the core online storage infrastructure for TikTok's global business, with a focus on AI-native development and operations. The team is undergoing a paradigm shift from manual oncall and hand-crafted governance to AI-native development and operations.

What You Will Do

Design and build the AI Context & Knowledge Layer, Research and implement Agentic Workflows, Establish Agent Evaluation & Experimentation, Storage Platform Skill-ification & Toolchain Integration, and Drive AI-Native Adoption & Enablement.

Why It Might Be a Fit

This is a greenfield opportunity to design the AI infrastructure layer from scratch, establish an evaluation framework, and drive org-wide adoption. You will tackle world-class challenges in globalization, multi-region active-active, compliance, and cost efficiency—while using AI to redefine how storage systems are built and operated.

Requirements

  • PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field
  • Thesis-based Master's degree with a research focus in AI, ML, software engineering, or systems
  • Proficiency in Python and Go (or C++ / Java)
  • Deep expertise in LLM application engineering
  • Solid distributed systems foundation
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