Machine Learning Engineer Graduate; Tech and Product, USDS PhD) Seattle Regular R&D Talent

Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (Tech and Product, USDS) - 2027 Start (PhD)

Seattle Regular R&D Future Talent 2027 - PhD Program Job : A65494

About the team

The Tech and Product team of Tik Tok USDS is missioned to empower Tik Tok US users to have a great user experience with strong data security and privacy protections, focusing on compliance, reliability, business and product support, and efficiency improvement.

As part of this team, you will build and scale high-impact Machine Learning solutions—including recommendation engines, search relevance, and e-commerce systems—designed specifically to deliver personalized, high-performing experiences while ensuring world-class data governance, privacy compliance, and system security for US users.

We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth.

Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.

Depending on the team that you'll be considered for, you can expect to:

• - Design, build, train, and evaluate machine learning models for recommendation systems, search ranking, query understanding, or conversion prediction.
• - Implement efficient pipelines for feature extraction, model training, evaluation, offline-to-online deployment, and A/B testing.
• - Process and analyze massive user behavior data and catalog logs using distributed systems to construct real-time and offline features.
• - Optimize online inference latency and system throughput for high-QPS production microservices.
• - Conduct continuous A/B testing, analyze online metrics, identify bottleneck areas, and iterate on models to drive business goals.

Minimum Qualification(s):

• - Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a PhD's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Math, Statistics, or a related discipline.
• - Solid background in Data Structures, Algorithms, Computer Systems, and Software Design.
• - Strong theoretical understanding and practical knowledge of machine learning concepts.

Preferred Qualification(s):

• - Prior internship or project experience in Recommendation Systems, Search Engine, Computational Advertising, or E-Commerce AI
• - Experience with distributed computing frameworks

About USDS

Tik Tok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm.

We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.

On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.

Inspiring creativity is at the core of Tik Tok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible.…