Machine Learning Engineer Intern (TikTok Vertical Search) - 2026 Start (BS/MS)

Team Introduction
The TikTok Search Team is building a large-scale, full-stack search engine to serve billions of users worldwide. Our mission is to deliver not just relevant results, but an ideal search experience that is fast, personalized, and insightful.
We work across both general and vertical search scenarios, including PhotoText, User Search, Live and more — applying Large Language Models (LLMs), NLP, and Multimodal Understanding to continuously push the boundaries of search quality and system design.

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. Internships at TikTok aim to offer students industry exposure and hands-on experience. Watch your ambitions become reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at TikTok.

Candidates can apply to a maximum of two positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to TikTok and its affiliates' jobs globally.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early.
Successful candidates must be able to commit to at least 3 months long internship period.

Responsibilities
- Collaborate with full-time engineers to improve TikTok's core and vertical search quality (e.g., PhotoText, User, Live, etc).
- Support tasks in query understanding, content modeling, and ranking optimization.
- Participate in the exploration and application of LLMs, NLP, and multimodal models in real-world search scenarios.