[Remote] Research Scientist Intern (Data-TnS-Algo-Foundations & Intelligence Service)- 2026 Start (PhD)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video, and they are seeking a Research Scientist Intern to contribute to their foundation-model team focused on LLM and VLM capabilities. This internship will provide hands-on experience in developing approaches to improve AI safety and capability while collaborating with industry experts.

Responsibilities

• Explore and develop approaches that improve general capability and safety for LLMs and VLMs via pretraining/CPT
• Build advanced evaluation systems to study emerging LLM/VLM skills and safety behaviors, aligned with real downstream use
• Develop advanced reinforcement-learning strategies (e.g., RLHF/RLAIF/DPO variants), and investigate how to balance pretraining and post-training for better capability and safety alignment
• Probe new failure modes and pitfalls in scaffolded environments (agents, workflows, tool use), and translate insights into robust mitigations

Skills

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field
• Research experience in at least one of: LLMs, AI Safety, Computer Vision, Multimodality
• Actively track recent AI-safety developments (familiar with current papers, benchmarks, and terminology)
• Proficient with at least one deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Excellent analytical/problem-solving ability, clear logical thinking, and strong communication/collaboration skills
• Publications in top AI or Security venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, COLM, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, NDSS)

Benefits

• Day one access to health insurance
• Life insurance
• Wellbeing benefits
• 10 paid holidays per year
• Paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year)
• Housing allowance

Company Overview

Company H1B Sponsorship