Research Scientist Intern- (Trust and Safety - CV/NLP/Multimodal LLM) - 2026 Start(PhD)

Responsibilities
The Trust and Safety algorithm team is responsible for developing state-of-the-art computer vision, NLP and multimodality models and algorithms to protect our platform and users from the content and behaviors that violate community guidelines and related regulations. With the continuous efforts from our team, TikTok is able to provide the best user experience and bring joy to everyone in the world. We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. PhD Internships at TikTok aim to provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. In our team, you will have the opportunity to participate in the development of the cutting-edge content understanding model to help improve the recognition ability of violated content in TikTok, and will also be responsible for optimizing our distributed model training framework continuously. PhD internships at TikTok provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date). Responsibilities 1. Develop computer vision model or multimodality model to recognize violation content in TikTok 2. Explore cutting-edge multimodal or computer vision large models (CLIP, COCA, ALBEF, BLIP, Flamingo, ViT-G, ViT-22B, EVA-enormous, etc) 3. Explore the application of LLM in our business scenarios, like pre-training, zero-shot/ few-shot learning, hard case mining, etc 4. Continuously optimize the training framework to better adapt to the training of large models.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications: 1. PhD candidate in computer science or a related technical discipline 2. Related Research Experience at least one of the following areas: computer vision, multimodality, LLM 3. Be proficient with at least one deep learning framework (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow) 4. Have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, logical thinking skills, communication and collaboration skills Preferred Qualifications: 1. Published papers in the top AI conferences or journals is a plus, including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NIPS, ICML, ICLR, TPAMI, IJCV, etc By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here:
Job Information
(For Pay Transparency)Compensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern
The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $57- $57.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.
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 TikTok
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 we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect - and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
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 Accommodation
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