Online Architecture Engineer Intern (TikTok-Generalized Arch)- 2026 Summer (BS/MS)

About the Role

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to research and optimization of TikTok's planet-scale business architecture, supporting billions of users, globally distributed data centers, and microservice clusters with millions of services.
• Assist in data modeling and algorithmic optimization to address key challenges in large-scale infrastructure and business architecture, including capacity forecasting, service and data placement, traffic scheduling, and risk prediction.
• Transform research insights into prototypes, tools, or frameworks under the guidance of mentors, exploring their applicability in business scenarios.
• Analyze research data, summarize experimental results, and contribute to academic publications in top-tier conferences or journals.
• Collaborate with architecture, platform, and business teams to understand real-world production challenges and explore potential optimization opportunities.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing an Undergraduate or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, or related fields.
• Solid research background in distributed systems, large-scale system optimization, or AI for Systems.
• Able to commit to working for 12 weeks during Summer 2026.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to model complex business and infrastructure systems, and communicate solutions effectively.
• Familiarity with optimization algorithms such as integer programming, dynamic programming, graph optimization, heuristic search, or reinforcement learning.
• Proficiency in at least one mainstream programming language (e.g., Go, Java, C++, Python).
• Ability to quickly learn and understand complex architectural patterns and leverage AI tools and automation methods.

Nice to Have

• Experience in data modeling and analysis for large-scale systems or business architectures.
• Research publications or submissions to top-tier conferences/journals such as OSDI, SOSP, NSDI, SoCC, SIGCOMM, KDD, NeurIPS.
• Hands-on project experience in distributed systems, resource scheduling, or architecture optimization.
• Familiarity with performance and optimization challenges in cross-data-center or cross-region architectures.

Qualifications

• Educational background as specified in the requirements (Undergraduate/Master’s in relevant fields).

Benefits & Perks

• Hourly rate of $45.
• Day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, and more.
• 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in the first half of the year, 40 hours if in the second half).
• Housing allowance eligibility for interns not working 100% remotely.
• Internship runs for 12 weeks with flexible start dates in May or June 2026.