Software Engineer - USDS

Responsibilities

About the Team
You will join the TikTok USDS Data Governance Team, the architects of the foundational infrastructure that manages the entire data lifecycle. Our mission is to ensure the integrity, security, and compliance of our data assets through robust lifecycle management, automated frameworks, and advanced content assurance standards.

Our team operates at the high-stakes intersection of Data Infrastructure, Privacy Engineering, and AI Governance. We are building the "operating system" for data compliance, replacing manual policies with scalable, automated code that enforces security and privacy standards across one of the world's largest data ecosystems.

About the Role
As a Software Engineer on the Data Governance team, you will build the "digital nervous system" protecting US user data. You will move beyond traditional compliance to build Governance as Code-creating self-serve platforms, automated lineage engines, and intelligent assurance systems.

You will be responsible for turning complex legal, security, and content requirements into scalable technical realities. Your systems must handle the unique challenge of managing petabytes of data across heterogeneous environments (Offline, Real-time, Data Lake) while maintaining high reliability and engineering velocity.

Responsibilities:
Data Lifecycle Management: Design and scale systems for data inventory, lineage, and residual scanning to proactively remediate privacy risks across distributed storage.

AI & Recommendation Governance: Build metadata frameworks and control planes for Machine Learning pipelines, ensuring recommendation algorithms and training data adhere to safety and purpose-limitation protocols.

LLM Assurance & Safety: Develop technical frameworks to evaluate and mitigate risks in Large Language Model (LLM) outputs, focusing on safety filters, bias detection, and accuracy.

Compliance Engineering: Architect high-throughput engines to automate regulatory adherence and build centralized platforms that provide real-time observability into data security.

High-Scale Systems: Optimize distributed systems to handle the unique latency and reliability requirements of real-time recommendation environments.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
- 2+ years of experience in backend software development (Go, Java, C++, or Python).
- Experience with Distributed Systems and handling high-volume data pipelines.
- Solid understanding of Data Structures, Algorithms, and Database Design.

Preferred Qualifications:
- Background in Data Privacy, AI Safety, or Model Fairness.
- AI/ML Domain Knowledge: Experience with Recommendation Systems, ML infra, or LLM evaluation/safety (e.g., fine-tuning, prompt engineering governance).
- Technical Stack: Proficiency in Go (Golang) and familiarity with Big Data technologies.
- Ability to translate complex safety and legal policies into robust, scalable code.

Job Information

[For Pay Transparency] Compensation Description (annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $136800 - $359720 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.