Software Engineer Intern; Effects ; Summer San Jose Undergraduate​/Ma

Discover a career that energizes and excites you every day.

@2026 Tik Tok

Technology

San Jose

Intern

A197798

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About the Team Creative Effects are a big part of the Tik Tok experience. From beauty filters to AI Effect, effects make content creation easy, fun, and dynamic — but only when they run flawlessly on the phone in your hand. We are the Tik Tok Effects Performance Team, powering the system behind every filter, AR effect, and visual effect used by hundreds of millions of creators every day.

Our mission is to make effects feel smooth, instant, and power-efficient on every device our users hold, from the latest flagship to the most entry-level phone. If you are passionate about real-time rendering and squeezing the most out of mobile hardware, you came to the right place.

You will be working in the business architecture layer of our self-developed rendering engine — the system that turns effect assets into a fluid, low-power camera experience. Partnering closely with rendering, algorithm, and camera pipeline teams, you'll help profile and optimize frame rate, first-frame latency, memory footprint, and power consumption, and help build the tooling that makes this work scale. Every millisecond and every milliwatt saved is felt by hundreds of millions of Tik Tok creators around the world.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship. Our internship program offers students hands‑on experience, industry exposure, and opportunities to apply their knowledge to real‑world challenges while building a strong foundation for personal and professional growth.

Interns will gain practical experience, explore potential career paths, and participate in social events, learning programs, and development workshops alongside industry professionals.

Candidates may apply to a maximum of two positions across Our Company and its affiliates globally. Applications will be considered in the order they are submitted.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early. Please clearly state your availability in your resume, including your start and end dates.

Responsibilities:

- Participate in the research and development of the effect performance architecture behind Tik Tok Camera, the system that delivers smooth, low-power effect experiences to hundreds of millions of creators.

- Contribute to the design and implementation of new effect capabilities in the business architecture layer of our self-developed rendering engine, to provide a richer and smoother creation experience for users
- Assist in the design and implementation of automated performance analysis pipelines, such as automatic trace capture, agent‑assisted bottleneck analysis, and regression detection, to assess effect performance at various stages
- Using profiling and optimization techniques such as frame-time analysis, rendering pipeline tuning, and graceful degradation to improve effect experience across a massive range of mobile devices

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $45- $45.

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. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially…