Backend Software Engineer, AI Safety (Multiple Positions)

TikTok is seeking a Backend Software Engineer to join its AI Safety team in San Jose. The role involves designing and maintaining infrastructure for safe deployment and monitoring of generative AI systems, developing detection and mitigation systems for misuse, and collaborating with ML and policy teams. Candidates need 2+ years of backend experience and expertise in large-scale distributed systems, databases, and data pipelines.

• Design, build, and maintain infrastructure that enables safe deployment and monitoring of generative AI systems.
• Develop systems to detect, respond to, and mitigate misuse and safety incidents in AI-generated content.
• Collaborate closely with ML engineers, T&S policy, operations, and research teams to align models with safety principles.
• Assess and remediate real-time safety risks from emerging AI capabilities.
• Assist in prototyping and productionizing classifiers, filters, audits, and feedback loops for high-risk or novel model outputs.
• Participate in safety evaluations, instrumentation, and experimentation to monitor alignment, fairness, and reliability at scale.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, or related field, plus 2 years of related work experience.
• 2 years of experience designing and implementing large-scale, distributed backend software services and systems using Go, Java, Python, or C++.