[Remote] Online Architecture Research Intern (TikTok-Generalized Arch)- 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 Intern for their General Architecture team. The role involves contributing to research and optimization of TikTok’s planet-scale business architecture while collaborating with various teams to address real-world challenges.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to research and optimization of TikTok’s planet-scale business architecture, supporting billions of users, globally distributed ultra-large-scale data centers, and microservice clusters with millions of services
• Assist in data modeling and algorithmic optimization to address key challenges in large-scale infrastructure and business architecture, including but not limited to capacity forecasting and planning, service and data placement optimization, traffic scheduling optimization, and risk prediction
• Under the guidance of mentors, transform research insights into prototypes, tools, or frameworks, and explore their applicability in selected business scenarios
• Participate in analyzing research data, summarizing experimental results, and contributing to academic publications in top-tier conferences/journals
• Collaborate with architecture, platform, and business teams to understand real-world production challenges and explore potential optimization opportunities

Skills

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, or related fields
• Solid research background in distributed systems, large-scale system optimization, or AI for Systems
• Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to model planet-scale, complex business and infrastructure systems, abstract key variables and constraints, and clearly articulate solutions through rigorous logical reasoning and effective communication
• Familiarity with optimization algorithms such as integer programming, dynamic programming, graph optimization, heuristic search, or reinforcement learning, with the ability to apply them to large-scale optimization problems
• Proficiency in at least one mainstream programming language (e.g., Go, Java, C++, Python), with the capability to build research prototypes
• Ability to quickly learn and deeply understand complex architectural patterns, while leveraging AI tools and automation methods to improve research and development efficiency
• Experience in data modeling and analysis for large-scale systems or business architectures
• Research publications or submissions to top-tier conferences/journals such as OSDI, SOSP, NSDI, SoCC, SIGCOMM, KDD, NeurIPS
• Hands-on project experience in distributed systems, resource scheduling, or architecture optimization (including academic projects or previous internships)
• Familiarity with performance and optimization challenges in cross-data-center or cross-region architectures

Benefits

• Interns have day one access to health insurance
• Life insurance
• Wellbeing benefits and more
• Interns also receive 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)
• Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.

Company Overview

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