Research Engineer - Foundation Models, Ads Integrity
TikTok
San Jose, CA · Posted November 13, 2026
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Where San Jose, CA ranks
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November 2026
- #1Best cities for marketing pay after cost of living$204k · of 16
- #1Best cities for aerospace and defense pay after cost of living$187k · of 19
- #2Best cities for security pay after cost of living$220k · of 10
- #3Best cities for technology pay after cost of living$205k · of 80
- #5Best cities for technology jobs1,449 openings · of 100
- #5Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the West Coast162 jobs · of 47
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing does not state pay. Across 40 open research engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $190,000 to $280,000 and the median is $250,000.
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TikTok has filed one layoff notice in the last twelve months, covering 250 workers, most recently August 2026. These are public filings with state labor departments, and an open role can sit alongside them. See the filings
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About the job
Our Business Integrity team has a strong user focus and a dedication to technical excellence. We aim to meet our users’ needs with reliable and high-performing platforms and services. We are looking for strong machine learning engineers who are excited to grow their business understanding, build highly scalable machine learning models, and partner across disciplines with global teams, in pursuit of excellence. Given the fast growth of TikTok in the world, we are working on building a next-generation content understanding system for TikTok monetization. We are seeking sophisticated Research Engineers who are experienced in machine learning, which can help us create an ecosystem that rewards high quality user experience and advertiser value.
Why Join Us? 1. Work on cutting-edge AI research with real-world impact in a fast-growing tech ecosystem. 2. Collaborate with world-class researchers and engineers to push the boundaries of generative AI. 3. Competitive compensation, flexible work culture, and opportunities for rapid career growth.
Responsibilities 1. Drive cutting-edge research in Generative AI and foundation models, leading projects in text generation/translation, multimodal understanding (image/video-to-text), deepfake synthesis/detection, and efficient training/inference for AIGC models. Define technical roadmaps and align with long-term business goals. 2. Architect and deploy AIGC solutions for monetization ecosystems (ads, e-commerce, short video, live streaming), translating research into scalable systems with measurable business impact. 3. Engage and lead a high-performing team of researchers/engineers, fostering innovation in large-scale model development, content understanding, and AI-driven productization. 4. Spearhead cross-functional collaborations with product, engineering, and infrastructure teams to productionize models, ensuring robustness, efficiency, and ethical AI practices. 5. Shape industry-leading research through patents, publications, and open-source contributions, while maintaining a pulse on emerging trends to guide strategic investments.
Minimum Qualifications: - PhD or MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related fields with 5+ years of industry research experience (or equivalent) - Deep expertise in AIGC algorithms (LLMs, diffusion models, etc.), with a proven track record of scaling models from research to production - Strong background in either NLP (text generation, RLHF) or multimodal learning (vision-language models) - Proficiency in PyTorch/JAX, distributed training, and inference optimization (e.g., quantization, model compression) - Team engagement experience, with the ability to mentor and collaborate with cross-functional team stakeholders, set technical direction, and align projects with business objectives - Demonstrated ability to design long-term roadmaps, anticipate industry shifts, and make high-impact technical decisions under fast-paced global business settings.
Preferred Qualifications: - Experience with AI safety, alignment, or adversarial robustness in generative models - Familiarity with reinforcement learning for autonomous agents or large-scale recommender systems