Research Scientist in AI Foundation Model Infrastructure - Seed - Graduates - 2027 Start (PhD

Responsibilities

About the team
The Seed Infrastructures team oversees the distributed training, reinforcement learning framework, high-performance inference, and heterogeneous hardware compilation technologies for AI foundation models.

• Design and build scalable infrastructure for large-scale model training, evaluation, and inference.
• Optimize distributed training systems across compute, memory, and communication.
• Improve system reliability, efficiency, and observability for large-scale workloads.
• Develop frameworks for evaluation, data processing, and model lifecycle management.
• Co-design systems and algorithms to improve performance of foundation models.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a PhD in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or a related field, with an expected graduation date in 2027 and the ability to commit to an onboarding date by the end of 2027.
• Excellent coding ability, data structures, and fundamental algorithm skills, proficient in C/C++ or Python, etc.
• Experience in distributed systems, large-scale training infrastructure, or ML systems.
• Familiarity with deep learning frameworks and system optimization.

• Strong problem-solving and engineering skills.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $232560 - $427500 annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. 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, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
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 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; and
• Exercising sound judgment.

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…