Research Scientist Intern; Seed AI PhD

Research Scientist Intern (Seed Responsible AI) - 2026 Start (PhD)

Location:

San Jose

The Seed-Responsible AI team promotes safe and sustainable AI by researching its core mechanisms to provide insights and practical guidance. We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. PhD Internships at Byte Dance aim to provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies.

Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).

Responsibilities:

• Developing advanced technologies in AI, particularly AI foundation models and AI agents;
• Conducting research on the technologies of AI to make them more reliable, safe, and trustworthy;
• Contributing to the development of products in the company with regards to AI safety and AI ethics.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong research background in at least one of the areas: large language model (LLM) training, LLM interpretability, LLM agents, reinforcement learning, or LLM / AI agent safety.
• Excellent coding ability, data structures, and fundamental algorithm skills, proficient in C/C++ or Python, winners of competitions such as ACM/ICPC, IOI, Top Coder etc. are preferred.
• Experience with influential projects or papers in ML, NLP, LLM, is preferred.
• Excellent problem analysis and solving skills.
• Good communication and collaboration skills.

For Pay Transparency Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $60- $60.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and 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.

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Established in 2023, the Byte Dance Seed team is dedicated to pioneering new paths toward artificial general intelligence. We aspire to advance the frontier of intelligence to drive progress for both technology and society.

With a long-term vision for the AI sector, the Seed team's research spans MLLM, Gen Media, AI for Science, and Robotics. We maintain a global presence with laboratories and career opportunities across China, Singapore, and the United States. To date, we have launched industry-leading general foundation models and cutting-edge multimodal capabilities. Our technology powers over 50 application scenarios — including Doubao, Jimeng, TRAE, Dola and Dreamnia — and serves enterprise customers through Volcano Engine and Byte Plus.

Third-party data shows that the Doubao App ranks first in user volume in the Chinese market, while Doubao foundation models lead the industry in average daily token consumption.

Inspiring creativity is at the core of Byte Dance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As Byte Dancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We…