Backend Software Engineer - TikTok, Social Foundation

Responsibilities

About the Team
The Social Foundation team is the technical bedrock of TikTok's global ecosystem, dedicated to building a world-class social data platform and industry-leading graph engine. We operate at the forefront of large-scale graph computing, designing the core infrastructure that processes trillions of edges to deliver real-time relationship insights to billions of users. By providing "Graph Data as a Service"-encompassing user connections, interactions, and high-performance counters-we empower TikTok's diverse business scenarios with millisecond-level multi-hop queries and real-time graph mining. Our mission is to build a robust, overseas graph infrastructure that fuels global connectivity, powering mission-critical features like friend recommendations, live streaming, and risk control to redefine the social experience worldwide.

Responsibilities
- Design and implement high-performance data storage and management systems for trillion-scale social graph data, ensuring seamless integration and rapid iteration for mission-critical applications.
- Develop distributed graph database engines capable of handling billions of vertices and trillions of edges, enabling millisecond-level multi-hop queries and real-time graph reasoning.
- Build a real-time graph mining platform to extract social relationships, patterns, clusters, and communities, fueling product strategies and personalized recommendations.
- Lead the integration of the Social Graph with core systems (e.g., recommendation, search, risk control) to support social interactions, live-streaming, and various TikTok business use cases.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science or a related technical discipline
- Experienced in building backend services for large-scale consumer-facing applications
- Proficient in at least one of the following languages: Go, Java, C++, Python
- Deep understanding of computer architectures, data structures, and algorithms
- Strong communication and teamwork skills

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $122574 - $256000 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