Senior Backend Software Engineer - Innovative Growth
Summary
Designs and builds scalable backend systems to drive user growth and content optimization for TikTok, leveraging AI/ML and distributed systems in Go, Python, or Java.
Location: San Jose
Employment Type: Regular
Job Code: A159230A
Responsibilities
- Design and develop backend systems that power user growth and content optimization across TikTok platforms
- Drive innovative growth initiatives across search, discovery, and other emerging traffic channels
- Develop AIGC-powered solutions and scalable systems for content optimization, experimentation, and automated workflows
- Build and improve core growth and content systems with strong ownership of scalability, reliability, and performance
- Lead complex projects end-to-end, from technical design to production rollout, with strong ownership of quality and business impact
- Partner closely with product, data, algorithm, and design teams to deliver cross-functional technical solutions
- Contribute to engineering excellence through strong technical design, code quality, operational best practices, and system reliability
Qualifications
- Minimum: Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science or a related field; 3+ years of industry experience in backend engineering or distributed systems; strong experience designing and building large-scale backend services or consumer-facing platforms; experience working on content, growth, recommendation, experimentation, or search-related systems; proficiency in Go, Python, Java, or C++; strong system design, problem solving, software engineering skills; good communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively across teams.
- Preferred: Experience with AIGC, LLM applications, agent frameworks, AI coding tools, or workflow automation systems; experience building data-driven optimization or experimentation platforms; experience delivering user-facing products from concept to production in a fast-paced environment; interest in search, discovery, and growth ecosystems, including SEO, GEO, or emerging AI-driven traffic channels; experience with AI agents or agentic workflows, and interest in applying them to engineering efficiency and product development.
Job Information
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $212,800-$387,600 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).
Equal Employment Opportunity
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:
- Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
- Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
- Exercising sound judgment.