TikTok USDS Joint Venture
Machine Learning Engineer — AI Safety & Assurance
Seattle, Washington · Mid
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
$28,398 more — $206,086 — moves this role to Level IV and 4 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $206,086 would place this position at wage Level IV. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
Employer immigration record
from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Files H-1B transfers
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
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About the role
- You will join the TikTok USDS JV - Data Governance and Assurance Engineering team, the architects of the foundational infrastructure managing the end-to-end AI lifecycle.
- Our mission is to ensure the integrity, security, and compliance of our AI assets through automated frameworks and advanced content assurance standards.
- Our team operates at the high-stakes intersection of TikTok's State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Recommendation Systems, Adversarial ML, and AI Governance.
Responsibilities
- Automated Safety Evaluation: Design and scale high-throughput evaluation engines to benchmark LLM and Recommendation Model outputs against safety, bias, and accuracy protocols.
- Adversarial Robustness: Build and maintain continuous monitoring frameworks to proactively identify vulnerabilities in recommendation logic and model behavior.
- Real-time Mitigation: Develop low-latency safety filters and "circuit breakers" that can intervene in real-time recommendation streams (ms-level latency) without compromising system performance.
- Observability & Lineage: Create centralized platforms that provide real-time observability into model decisions, ensuring every algorithmic "promotion" is traceable, auditable, and compliant.
- Design and scale high-throughput evaluation engines to benchmark LLM and Recommendation Model outputs against safety, bias, and accuracy protocols.
- Build and maintain continuous monitoring frameworks to proactively identify vulnerabilities in recommendation logic and model behavior.
- Develop low-latency safety filters and "circuit breakers" that can intervene in real-time recommendation streams (ms-level latency) without compromising system performance.
- Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
- We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company.
- When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless.
Requirements
- Software Engineering: 2+ years of experience in production-level software development (Go, Python, or C++).
- Systems at Scale: Proven experience with Distributed Systems and handling high-volume ML data pipelines (e.g., Spark, Flink, or Kafka).
- 2+ years of experience in production-level software development (Go, Python, or C++).
- Proven experience with Distributed Systems and handling high-volume ML data pipelines (e.g., Spark, Flink, or Kafka).
Nice to have
- LLM Specialization: Familiarity with LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g., G-Eval, RAGAS), safety fine-tuning (RLHF/DPO), or prompt-injection defense.
- Full-Stack ML Tech: Proficiency in Go (Golang) for high-performance backend infrastructure and Python/PyTorch for ML modeling and research.
- Regulatory Translation: A proven ability to translate complex legal and safety policies into rigorous, scalable technical implementations.
- 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.
- 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.
Compensation
- 【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
- The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $177688 - $341734 annually.
- 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).
Benefits
- 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.
- The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
- Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location.
Company info
- We are building the "safety operating system" for TikTok's US data, replacing manual oversight with scalable, automated code that enforces safety and alignment across one of the world's most sophisticated algorithmic ecosystems.
- We strive to do great things with great people.
- 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.
Equal opportunity
- USDS Reasonable Accommodation
- If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
This listing is sourced directly from TikTok USDS Joint Venture's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.