Job Specifications
Responsibilities
About the Team
Join ByteDance’s database R&D team, where you’ll build and own cutting-edge database products supporting ByteDance’s global infrastructure. Our diverse portfolio includes relational databases, distributed caches, key-value stores, document databases, graph databases, wide-column stores, search engines, and multi-model databases.
About The Role
We are building the next-generation AI-native database systems—intelligent, multimodal, and designed for the era of large models. Our systems are not just data stores; they’re reasoning engines, retrieval platforms, and real-time memory for AI agents. As a Software Engineer or Researcher, you will be at the forefront of rethinking how databases work when built from the ground up for AI workloads. You’ll help create infrastructure that powers intelligent systems across TikTok, CapCut, and future applications that haven’t been imagined yet.
We are looking for talented individuals to join us for an internship in 2026. Internships at ByteDance aim to offer students industry exposure and hands-on experience. Turn your ambitions into reality as your inspiration brings infinite opportunities at ByteDance.
Internships at ByteDance aim to provide students with hands-on experience in developing fundamental skills and exploring potential career paths. A vibrant blend of social events and enriching development workshops will be available for you to explore. Here, you will utilize your knowledge in real-world scenarios while laying a strong foundation for personal and professional growth.
PhD internships at Bytedance provide students with the opportunity to actively contribute to our products and research, and to the organization's future plans and emerging technologies. Our dynamic internship experience blends hands-on learning, enriching community-building and development events, and collaboration with industry experts.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early. Please state your availability clearly in your resume (Start date, End date).
Responsibilities
Develop kernel modules or features for AI-native database systems.
Solve unique, large-scale, highly complex cloud infrastructure problems
Partner with PMs and engineers from different teams on building backend support for AI-native database service products
Participate in technical discussions related to team's product and engineering work
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or other related fields
Knowledge of database kernel, distributed system, query processing and optimization, multi-threaded programming
Experience coding in C/C++, Golang, Java, Python
Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment.
Preferred Qualifications
Demonstrated software engineering experience from previous internship, work experience, coding competitions, or publications.
Curiosity towards new technologies and entrepreneurship.
High levels of creativity and quick problem-solving capabilities.
Experience with open-source systems such as Faiss, Milvus, DuckDB, ClickHouse, TiKV, RocksDB.
Publications at top-tier conferences (e.g., SIGMOD, VLDB, NeurIPS, MLSys, ICDE).
Familiarity with GCP, AWS, or Azure’s database and AI integration strategies.
Prior contributions to RAG, memory-augmented models, or self-tuning database components.
Job Information
For Pay TransparencyCompensation Description (Hourly) - Campus Intern
The hourly rate range for this position in the selected city is $60- $60.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Interns have day one access to health insurance, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and more. Interns also receive 10 paid holidays per year and paid sick time (56 hours if hired in first half of year, 40 if hired in second half of year). Interns who are not working 100% remote may also be eligible for housing allowance.
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:
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; and
Exercising sound judgment.
About Us
F
About the Company
ByteDance is a global incubator of platforms at the cutting edge of commerce, content, entertainment and enterprise services - over 2.5bn people interact with ByteDance products including TikTok.
Creation is the core of ByteDance's purpose. Our products are built to help imaginations thrive. This is doubly true of the teams that make our innovations possible.
Together, we inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we aim towards achieving every day. At ByteDance, we create together and grow together. That's how we dri...
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