Sr. Research Engineer​/Scientist (all levels), Efficient Models

Sr. Research Engineer/Scientist (all levels), Efficient Models

Location:

Seattle.

Employment Type:

Regular. Job Code: A250046.

The Vision-Applied Research team focuses on applied research in Generative AI and CV/Multimodal Understanding, delivering intelligent solutions to Tik Tok products and enabling users to create and share content more easily. The team includes research groups dedicated to generative models for content creation, image generation, video synthesis, intelligent image/video editing, and virtual humans.

• Develop efficient algorithms and architectures for large-scale generative and multimodal models, using techniques such as step distillation, cfg distillation, quantization, and other methods to improve model efficiency (e.g., image generation, video generation, VLM).
• Advance scalable generative modeling approaches, including diffusion and autoregressive models, with a focus on acceleration and efficiency.
• Design and implement distillation frameworks, model acceleration, hardware-efficient inference, and related applications.

Minimum Qualifications:

• B.S. in Computer Science or related fields, or equivalent experience.
• Expertise in efficient models with deep understanding of computational bottlenecks and acceleration methods.
• Proficiency in training generative AI or LLM models using widely adopted frameworks and tools such as PyTorch and JAX.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills in fast-paced environments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in GenAI, MLSys, or equivalent experience.
• Extensive research experience in generative AI, MLSys, or LLM areas.
• Proven experience in image/video generation and editing, model compression (quantization, step/cfg distillation), efficient architectures (MoE, window attention), efficient model design, or reinforcement learning training methods (RLHF, DPO, GRPO).

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $232,560 – $427,500 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on candidate qualifications, skills, competencies, experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work. This role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives and restricted stock units.

Employees have day-one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, and other benefits. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year, and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (pro-rated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

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 to the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

• Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues.
• Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems.
• Exercising sound judgment.