Senior Research Scientist/Engineer - AI Infrastructure

Responsibilities

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated AI Infrastructure Engineer to join our dynamic team. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, building, deploying, and maintaining the robust and scalable infrastructure that powers our cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) initiatives. You will work closely with our AI/ML researchers, data scientists, and software engineers to create an efficient, high-performance environment for training, inference, and data processing. Your expertise will be critical in enabling the next generation of AI-driven products and services.

Responsibilities
The ideal candidate should be an expert in at least one of the following fields to define and design the next-gen AI Infrastructure:
- Infrastructure Design & Architecture
- Lead end-to-end design of scalable, reliable AI infrastructure (AI accelerators, compute clusters, storage, networking) for training and serving large ML workloads.
- Define and implement service-oriented, containerized architectures (Kubernetes, VM frameworks, unikernels) optimized for ML performance and security.
- Performance Optimization
- Profile and optimize every layer of the ML stack—ML Compiler, GPU/TPU scheduling, NCCL/RDMA networking, data preprocessing, and training/inference frameworks.
- Develop low-overhead telemetry and benchmarking frameworks to identify and eliminate bottlenecks in distributed training and serving.
- Distributed Systems & Scalability
- Build and operate large-scale deployment and orchestration systems that auto-scale across multiple data centers (on-premises and cloud).
- Champion fault-tolerance, high availability, and cost-efficiency through smart resource management and workload placement.
- Data Pipeline & Workflow Engineering
- Architect and implement robust ETL and data ingestion pipelines (Spark/Beam/Dask/Flume) tailored for petabyte-scale ML datasets.
- Integrate experiment management and workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Kubeflow, Metaflow) to streamline research-to-production.
- Collaboration & Mentorship
- Partner with ML researchers to translate prototype requirements into production-grade systems.
- Mentor and coach engineers on best practices in performance tuning, systems design, and reliability engineering.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications
- Master's degree (PhD's degree is preferred) in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 5+ years in infrastructure or systems engineering focused roles, with 2-5 years focused on ML/AI infrastructure.
- Strong programming skills in Python, C++, Go, or Rust for systems development and automation.
- Ability to design end-to-end systems that balance performance, reliability, security, and cost.
- Excellent communicator able to bridge research and production teams.
- Strong problem-solving aptitude and a drive to push the state of the art in ML infrastructure.

Preferred Qualifications
- Hands-on experience with ML training frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX) at scale.
- Knowledge of hardware-level optimization: CUDA, ROCm, kernel bypass, FPGA/ASIC integration.
- Experience with Heterogeneous Computing for AI, Bigdata, HPC.
- Open-source contributions or patents in the ML systems space.
- Publications in top tier ML or System Conferences such as MLSys, ICML, ICLR, KDD, NeurIPS (Preferred)

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $184000 - $337000 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:​

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;​

2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and​

3. Exercising sound judgment.​

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.​

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.​

As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.​

Diversity & Inclusion​

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.​

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request​