Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure - USDS San Jose Regular R&D Job ID: JRXR2

About this role

Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure - USDS

San JoseRegularR&DJob ID: JRXR2

Responsibilities

About the Team The USDS JV Reliability and Efficiency team works with engineering and product teams to build and run large-scale, globally distributed, observable, fault-tolerant systems for TikTok state-of-the-Art Recommendation and Search engines. Engineers on this team will deliver on production ownership and be responsible for observability and automation across complex, large-scale service mesh architectures. Responsibilities:

• Assist in the deployment, operation, and optimization of Recommendation and Search systems throughout their entire lifecycle.
• Develop and maintain internal software and automation scripts to eliminate manual tasks and improve overall R&D velocity.
• Support the availability of large-scale services deployed across global data centers through proactive monitoring and maintenance.
• Track and report on cloud resource utilization to help the team meet efficiency goals and maintain cluster SLAs.
• Configure and manage monitoring stacks to track service latency, health metrics, and system performance.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, with 1+ years of professional experience in software development or infrastructure.
• Foundational knowledge of distributed systems and a strong interest in troubleshooting complex technical issues.
• Effective communication skills and a proactive approach to solving engineering bottlenecks.
• Experience with agentic frameworks and tools development. Preferred Qualifications:
• Familiarity with container orchestration tools like Kubernetes.
• Basic understanding of the machine learning lifecycle or model inference workflows.

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $122574 - $259200 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 USDS

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.​

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On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.​