Student Researcher (Foundation Model - Speech & Audio) - 2025 Start (PhD)

Responsibilities

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and its offices include New York, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Why Join Us
Creation is the core of TikTok's purpose. Our platform is built to help imaginations thrive. This is doubly true of the teams that make TikTok possible.
Together, we inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we all believe in and aim towards achieving every day.
To us, every challenge, no matter how difficult, is an opportunity; to learn, to innovate, and to grow as one team. Status quo? Never. Courage? Always.
At TikTok, we create together and grow together. That's how we drive impact - for ourselves, our company, and the communities we serve.
Join us.

Team Introduction
The SAMI team's mission is to empower content interaction and creation across products using speech & audio related technologies. We focus on cutting-edge R&D in areas like speech & audio, music processing, natural language understanding and multimodal deep learning. We are looking for top talents to work on these exciting technologies, integrate them into various products and ultimately bring joy to our global user base!

We are looking for talented individuals to join us for a Student Researcher opportunity in 2025. Student Researcher opportunities aim to offer students industry exposure and hands-on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities.

The Student Researcher position provides unique opportunities that go beyond the constraints of our standard internship program, allowing for flexibility in duration, time commitment, and location of work.

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.

Responsibilities:
- Contribute cutting-edge research to product evolution (e.g., TikTok, Douyin, CapCut) to impact billions of users worldwide.
- Work on advanced science and technology in audio processing and generation (e.g., Speech Synthesis, Voice Conversion, Audio Codec Learning, Audio Language Modeling, etc.).
- Research, model, design, develop and evaluate novel machine learning models and algorithms.
- Collaborate with globally based researchers and engineering teams in developing machine learning models and algorithms.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification
- Currently enrolled in a PhD degree in Computer Science, Linguistics, Statistics, or related technical field.
- Good knowledge of theoretical and empirical research in addressing research problems.
- Solid knowledge and experience with at least one popular deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow) and familiarity with deep neural network architectures.
- Good presentation and communication skills.
- Experience in both neural and non-neural, classical machine learning models and algorithms.
- Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment.
- Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment.

Preferred Qualification
- Research experience in one or more of the following fields: speech synthesis, audio generation, large language model, computer vision, generative models.
- Strong first-author publications record in top AI conferences or journals(e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL etc.).
- Proficient in C / C + +, Python, and shell programming languages, and have a deep understanding of data structure and algorithm design.
- Internship experience in an AI research organization.

TikTok 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 TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. 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.

TikTok 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://shorturl.at/cdpT2

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description Intern (hourly)

The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $57- $57. We cover 100% premium coverage for Full-Time intern medical insurance after 90 days from the date of hire. Medical coverage only, no dental or vision coverage.​

Our time off and leave plans are: Paid holidays and paid sick leave. The sick leave entitlement is based on the time you join.​

We also provide mental and emotional health benefits through our Employee Assistance Program and provide reimbursements for your mobile phone expense. 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.​