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Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (E-Commerce Recommendation Foundation)- 2027 Start (PhD)

TikTok · Seattle, WA · posted 88 days ago

In short: Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (E-Commerce Recommendation Foundation)- 2027 Start (PhD) at TikTok in Seattle, WA, posted 88 days ago.

By AtiveSite · Published 07/11/2026 · Updated 08/11/2026 · Every figure is linked to its source below.

TikTokemployer
Seattle, WAlocation
Data, analytics and AIsub-niche
88 days agoposted
🆕 Work guides: live jobs + official data, law, permits, pay and cost of living. United States · Washington · King County · Seattle · all 80 cities + map → · all 39 counties → · Washington rankings · Seattle and Puget Sound special · all 51 states → · 200 largest companies · 240 best job niches · Federal jobs in Washington

The job

LIVE Live feed (private-sector employer) Source: The Muse public API · Data: listed 2026-08-12

EmployerTikTok
LocationSeattle, Washington
FieldTechnology › Data, analytics and AI
LevelMid Level
Source categoryBusiness Operations
Posted2026-08-12 (88 days ago)
Work arrangementOn-site at the location listed
PayNot published in the source listing

Job description

Responsibilities

The Recommendation Foundation team within TikTok's Data - Global E-commerce organization is dedicated to building shared Recommendation Foundation Models across scenarios. We are exploring an event-sequence-driven generative recommendation paradigm that deeply integrates large language and vision-language models (LLMs/VLMs), multimodal understanding, reinforcement learning, and system optimization, advancing recommendation systems beyond click prediction toward general-purpose recommendation agents.

We believe the future of recommendation is not only about predicting clicks, but about understanding the relationships between people and content and generating new connections. We value original exploration and encourage research thinking and engineering practice equally. Every team member can propose hypotheses and validate ideas in an open environment; your code and publications may help shape the next generation of recommendation systems. We are looking for people with a general-intelligence mindset to redefine recommendation with us.

We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth.

Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume.

Responsibilities:
1. Participate in the full training lifecycle of Recommendation Foundation Models, including pre-training, mid-training, and post-training.
2. Design and train multimodal semantic tokenizers for recommendation items, leveraging multimodal foundation models to encode rich item content into discrete semantic tokens and raise the performance ceiling of Recommendation Foundation Models.
3. Develop LLM-native recommendation by incorporating recommendation tasks directly into large language model training and leveraging world knowledge to improve recommendation quality.
4. Build the next generation of recommendation systems powered by Recommendation Foundation Models, spanning retrieval, ranking, and end-to-end generative recommendation.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:
- Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a PhD degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or a related discipline.
- Solid foundation in machine learning and deep learning, with strong interest in LLMs and generative recommendation.
- Proficiency in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Self-driven, with a strong research mindset and solid engineering skills.

Preferred Requirement:
- Experience with pre-training, mid-training, or post-training of LLMs or Foundation Models.
- Research or project experience in generative recommendation, LLM-native recommendation, or multimodal semantic tokenization.
- Publications on LLM-related topics at top-tier machine learning or natural language processing conferences, such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, or NAACL, or strong achievements in major technical competitions.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $153900 - $300960 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.

Explore around this job

Field: Technology Sub-niche: Data, analytics and AI All jobs at TikTok Jobs in Washington Jobs in Seattle, WA Seattle city guide Washington state guide King County economy

View this job and apply on The Muse →

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About the role

This is a Mid Level role in the Technology field (Data, analytics and AI) at TikTok. Mid-level roles usually expect some years of relevant experience and the ability to work with limited supervision.

We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.

Does the pay work here? (estimate)

Estimate for a wage earner: 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction (IRS), Social Security 6.2% up to $184,500, Medicare 1.45% (+0.9% above $200,000 single / $250,000 married), and a state rate you set; set your own state tax rate. It ignores credits, pre-tax deductions, local taxes and benefits. Sources: IRS: tax year 2026 inflation adjustments · SSA wage base per Federal Register notice 2025-19763.

How to prepare and behave

This is editorial guidance, not information from the employer.

Know your rights as a candidate and an employee:

The city

The job is in Seattle, WA. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.

How Seattle compares. Among the 80 largest places in Washington, Seattle is #1 by population, #76 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #8 for college degrees (#1 = most), #8 for remote work (#1 = most). Its county, King County, is #1 of 39 counties for average pay ($132,279).

The place in numbers

Seattle has 754,195 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 9.6% of the population of Washington. It covers 84 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 8,979 people per square mile. The median age is 35.6, 7% younger than the state median (35.6 against 38.3).

Housing

The median gross rent is $2,030 a month (rent plus utilities), 15% above the state median ($2,030 against $1,760). Over a year that is 19.7% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $938,600, which is 7.6 times the median household income ($123,860); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 43.7% of households own their home, 31% below the state average (43.7% against 63.8%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.

Work and pay

The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metropolitan area has 2,086,210 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $72,610 a year, 42% above the national median ($72,610 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (212,900 jobs, median $59,660); business and financial operations (201,160 jobs, median $101,950); computer and mathematical (194,970 jobs, median $156,000). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (2.8 times) and architecture and engineering (1.4 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($168,110) and computer and mathematical ($156,000). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of King County was 4.8%. 74.0% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in King County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.

Getting around

Among workers, 36.6% drive alone, 11.9% use public transit, 8.1% walk, 34.8% work from home. 13.9% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 18% below the state average (13.9% against 16.9%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.

People and education

68.5% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 73% above the state share (68.5% against 39.6%). 20.1% of residents were born outside the United States, 31% above the state share (20.1% against 15.4%). The poverty rate is 9.9%, about the same as the state rate (9.9% against 9.9%).

Climate

The warmest month is Aug, averaging 65°F (18.3°C), and the coolest is Dec at 39°F (3.8°C). About 1,230 mm (48 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; Nov is the wettest month (188 mm) and Jul the driest (19 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.

Nearby cities to compare

Closest cities in this guide: Mercer Island (7 miles, rent 23% higher); Bainbridge Island (7 miles, rent 8% higher); Kirkland (9 miles, rent 18% higher); Bellevue (9 miles, rent 27% higher). Rent differences are against Seattle; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.

Full guide to Seattle →Washington guideAll jobs in Seattle

Official links for Seattle

These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.

Where to live

CITY Official statistics Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year (via Census Reporter) · Data: ACS 2020–2024

Places within 50 miles (straight line) of Seattle, WA that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.

Sort:
Place ⇅Distance from the job city ⇅Median rent ⇅Median home value ⇅Median household income ⇅Commute 45+ min ⇅Rent as % of occupation pay ⇅Open jobs there ⇅
Seattle, WA0 mi$2,030$938,600$123,86013.9%n/aJobs
Mercer Island, WA7 mi$2,502$2,000,001$219,0698.7%n/a—
Bainbridge Island, WA7 mi$2,194$1,155,900$172,18837.2%n/a—
Kirkland, WA9 mi$2,401$1,115,400$150,41410.8%n/a—
Bellevue, WA9 mi$2,572$1,340,300$165,57611.1%n/aJobs
Shoreline, WA10 mi$1,985$811,100$112,75117.1%n/a—
Burien, WA10 mi$1,782$638,800$91,31815.5%n/a—
Kenmore, WA10 mi$1,949$920,800$139,76419.3%n/a—
Tukwila, WA10 mi$1,898$489,000$78,38114.6%n/a—
Redmond, WA12 mi$2,409$1,167,800$162,5609.8%n/aJobs
Renton, WA12 mi$1,998$672,600$100,43222.0%n/aJobs
Mountlake Terrace, WA12 mi$2,004$667,300$107,68717.8%n/a—
SeaTac, WA12 mi$1,660$519,700$81,10414.7%n/a—
Bothell, WA13 mi$2,346$925,100$140,42716.6%n/a—
Edmonds, WA13 mi$1,903$890,100$122,44916.7%n/a—
Bothell West, WA14 mi$2,511$824,900$153,44929.0%n/a—
Lynnwood, WA15 mi$1,742$686,900$77,70419.6%n/aJobs
Sammamish, WA15 mi$2,857$1,407,300$239,69018.2%n/a—
Issaquah, WA15 mi$2,590$963,000$154,66912.8%n/a—
Fairwood, WA15 mi$2,233$733,200$122,13428.0%n/a—

Career paths

We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Technology, where your skills may carry over:

Cybersecurity (366) Software engineering (1880) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (504) Product management (412)

Distances

CITY Calculation (straight line) Source: U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer (coordinates) · Data: 2024

How far Seattle, WA is from the 20 largest US cities, in straight-line miles (not driving distance). Click a column to sort.

Sort:
From ⇅Straight-line distance (miles) ⇅Population of that city ⇅
Seattle, WA0 mi754,195
San Francisco, CA684 mi830,235
San Jose, CA714 mi990,138
Los Angeles, CA962 mi3,857,263
Denver, CO1,024 mi718,877
San Diego, CA1,059 mi1,389,526
Phoenix, AZ1,108 mi1,642,323
Oklahoma City, OK1,524 mi697,125
Fort Worth, TX1,658 mi963,194
Dallas, TX1,681 mi1,307,930
Chicago, IL1,732 mi2,711,226
Austin, TX1,769 mi979,539
San Antonio, TX1,784 mi1,479,835
Indianapolis, IN1,869 mi885,860
Houston, TX1,888 mi2,328,253
Columbus, OH2,009 mi914,802
Charlotte, NC2,283 mi903,844
Philadelphia, PA2,374 mi1,579,706
New York, NY2,407 mi8,483,844
Jacksonville, FL2,452 mi977,670

Nearby cities with open jobs (within 120 miles)

Sort:
City ⇅Straight-line distance ⇅Open jobs ⇅
Bellevue, WA9 mi75
Redmond, WA12 mi3
Lynnwood, WA15 mi3

The employer

TikTok is the employer in this listing. See all its open jobs here →

Company description (from The Muse): As the leading destination for short-form mobile video, TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.

size: Large Size; industries: Entertainment & Gaming, Social Media, Technology; locations on The Muse: Dubai, United Arab Emirates, London, United Kingdom, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Paris, France, Singapore.

We do not hold headcount or revenue for this employer. Check its careers site and, if it is listed on a stock exchange, its public filings (SEC EDGAR search).

The employer's profile on The Muse →

What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

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FAQ

What is the Machine Learning Engineer Graduate (E-Commerce Recommendation Foundation)- 2027 Start (PhD) job at TikTok?

A mid level role in technology (data, analytics and ai) listed 88 days ago. The full description is on this page and on The Muse.

Where is this job?

Seattle, WA.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on The Muse" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

Median rent in Seattle is $2,030 a month and median household income $123,860 (ACS 2020–2024).

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2026-08-12 (88 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse data, analytics and ai jobs in Washington.

Sources and terms

AtiveSite is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Muse, the employer or any government agency, and does not process applications. Verify every detail with the employer before acting.

Sources

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