Software Engineer Project Intern (Global E-Commerce Search Infrastructure) - 2026 Start

TikTok
Seattle
Workplace: OnsiteInternshipFunction: Software EngineeringSkills: ["Problem-solving","Collaboration","Innovation"]

Join the E-Commerce Engineering team to build and optimize TikTok Shop’s next-generation search platform. You’ll design low-latency, high-availability search services, develop near real-time data pipelines with Flink, Kafka, and Spark, and troubleshoot distributed systems at massive scale. You’ll also help research new search infrastructure approaches (cloud-native, AI search, and multimodal fusion) and collaborate with ML engineers to productionize recommendation and ranking models.

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FursaFursa
TikTok
TikTok
10 hours ago

Software Engineer Project Intern (Global E-Commerce Search Infrastructure) - 2026 Start

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 10 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Join the E-Commerce Engineering team to build and optimize TikTok Shop’s next-generation search platform. You’ll design low-latency, high-availability search services, develop near real-time data pipelines with Flink, Kafka, and Spark, and troubleshoot distributed systems at massive scale. You’ll also help research new search infrastructure approaches (cloud-native, AI search, and multimodal fusion) and collaborate with ML engineers to productionize recommendation and ranking models.
Location: Seattle
Workplace: Onsite
Employment Type: Internship · 3 months
Job Function: Software Engineering
Seniority: Intern level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Design and develop high-performance, low-latency, high-availability online search services, optimizing components like inverted index and vector retrieval.
  • •Build highly scalable, fault-tolerant data pipelines so product changes reflect in search results in near real-time.
  • •Optimize latency and throughput for services handling hundreds of thousands of QPS and troubleshoot distributed system issues to ensure 99.99% availability.
  • •Research and implement next-generation search infrastructure, including storage decoupling, cloud-native architecture, AI search, and multimodal fusion.
  • •Collaborate with a mentor and ML engineers to productionize state-of-the-art models and build large-scale recommendation systems.

Key Requirements

  • •Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Development, or a related technical discipline.
  • •Commit to a 12-week full-time work period during Fall 2026.
  • •Strong programming proficiency in at least one general-purpose language: C++, Go, Java, or Python (C++/Go preferred).
  • •Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, and system design.
  • •Preferred: experience with search engines or distributed storage and big data frameworks such as Lucene/Elasticsearch/Vespa, RocksDB/Redis, and Flink/Spark/Kafka.
Experience:E-commerceDistributed systemsSearch enginesBig dataInformation retrieval
Education:
Skills:Problem-solvingCollaborationInnovation
Tech Stack:C++GoJavaPythonFlinkKafkaSparkLuceneElasticsearchVespaRocksDBRedisFAISSHNSWBM25Learning-to-rankANN/HNSWVector similarity searchMulti-modal fusion

Company Brief

TikTok
Short-form video platform that lets users create, share, and discover entertainment content through algorithmic recommendations. It also offers advertising and creator tools for brands, influencers, and businesses.
Industry: Digital Media
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Growth: Scaleup
Headquarters: Singapore, Singapore
Founded: 2016
WebsiteLinkedIn