STEM OPT Llm Engineer Jobs
LLM Engineer roles in machine learning and natural language processing qualify for STEM OPT's 24-month extension when your degree is in computer science, data science, or a related STEM field. Your employer must be enrolled in E-Verify to hire you on STEM OPT, and you'll train under a formal I-983 plan tied to your engineering work.
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About the team
The Multimedia AI team at TikTok focuses on building, researching, and applying Large Language Models (LLMs) to power our global products. We believe the most impactful problems in AI arise at the intersection of research and real-world deployment—and post-training is where that intersection is sharpest. We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume. Candidates can apply to a maximum of two positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to our Company and its affiliates' jobs globally. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early.
Responsibilities:
- Support the development and optimization of post-training strategies, including instruction tuning, preference tuning (SFT/DPO/PPO), and model alignment.
- Assist in building robust evaluation pipelines to measure model performance, helpfulness, and safety across diverse multimedia product use cases.
- Participate in the research and implementation of cutting-edge methodologies in reward modeling and human preference learning.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to bridge the gap between experimental research and production-ready AI applications (e.g., video understanding, translation, and content classification).
- Analyze and process large-scale datasets to identify patterns that improve model behavior and alignment quality.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
- Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related discipline.
- Strong programming skills in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX.
- Foundational understanding of Transformer architectures and LLM training principles.
- Demonstrated ability to learn quickly in a fast-paced environment and a strong passion for AI "landing" and product application.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Previous experience or research projects involving LLM fine-tuning, RLHF, or synthetic data generation.
- Familiarity with distributed training tools (e.g., DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM).
- Experience or interest in multimodal AI (integrating text with video or audio).
- Proven track record of building and deploying AI projects, either through previous internships, open-source contributions, or academic research.
By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://careers.tiktok.com/legal/privacy
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $128000 - $316800 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:
- 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.
About TikTok
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day. We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
TikTok Accommodation
TikTok is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request
Responsibilities
About the team
The Multimedia AI team at TikTok focuses on building, researching, and applying Large Language Models (LLMs) to power our global products. We believe the most impactful problems in AI arise at the intersection of research and real-world deployment—and post-training is where that intersection is sharpest. We are looking for talented individuals to join our team. As a graduate, you will get opportunities to pursue bold ideas, tackle complex challenges, and unlock limitless growth. Successful candidates must be able to commit to an onboarding date by the end of the year. Please state your availability and graduation date clearly in your resume. Candidates can apply to a maximum of two positions and will be considered for jobs in the order you apply. The application limit is applicable to our Company and its affiliates' jobs globally. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis - we encourage you to apply early.
Responsibilities:
- Support the development and optimization of post-training strategies, including instruction tuning, preference tuning (SFT/DPO/PPO), and model alignment.
- Assist in building robust evaluation pipelines to measure model performance, helpfulness, and safety across diverse multimedia product use cases.
- Participate in the research and implementation of cutting-edge methodologies in reward modeling and human preference learning.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to bridge the gap between experimental research and production-ready AI applications (e.g., video understanding, translation, and content classification).
- Analyze and process large-scale datasets to identify patterns that improve model behavior and alignment quality.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
- Individuals who are completing or have recently completed a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related discipline.
- Strong programming skills in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX.
- Foundational understanding of Transformer architectures and LLM training principles.
- Demonstrated ability to learn quickly in a fast-paced environment and a strong passion for AI "landing" and product application.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Previous experience or research projects involving LLM fine-tuning, RLHF, or synthetic data generation.
- Familiarity with distributed training tools (e.g., DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM).
- Experience or interest in multimodal AI (integrating text with video or audio).
- Proven track record of building and deploying AI projects, either through previous internships, open-source contributions, or academic research.
By submitting an application for this role, you accept and agree to our global applicant privacy policy, which may be accessed here: https://careers.tiktok.com/legal/privacy
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $128000 - $316800 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:
- 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.
About TikTok
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day. We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
TikTok Accommodation
TikTok is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request
See all STEM OPT Llm Engineer Jobs
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Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding STEM OPT Authorization as a Llm Engineer
Verify your CIP code matches LLM roles
Check your degree's Classification of Instructional Programs code against STEM-designated CIP codes before applying. Computer science, electrical engineering, and data science codes typically qualify, but applied mathematics or information systems degrees vary by institution.
Confirm E-Verify enrollment before accepting offers
Ask your recruiter directly whether the company is enrolled in E-Verify before you reach the offer stage. Hiring managers at AI startups often don't know their E-Verify status, so verify through the official E-Verify employer search rather than taking their word for it.
Align your I-983 training plan to model deployment tasks
Your I-983 must connect your STEM degree to specific LLM engineering responsibilities. List concrete learning objectives tied to model fine-tuning, inference optimization, or RAG pipeline development so your DSO can certify the plan without revision requests.
Target AI labs and cloud platform teams at E-Verify employers
Use Migrate Mate to filter LLM Engineer roles by employers with confirmed E-Verify enrollment. AI research divisions at large cloud providers and well-funded AI startups that have completed Series B rounds or later are the most consistent sources of STEM OPT-compatible offers.
File your STEM OPT extension 90 days before OPT expires
USCIS requires your I-765 extension application to be received before your current EAD expires. Filing exactly 90 days early protects your work authorization gap if USCIS processing runs long, and your DSO must update SEVIS before you can submit.
Use OFLC Wage Search to benchmark your offer against prevailing wages
LLM Engineer roles map to SOC codes in computer occupations. Pull the prevailing wage for your specific job title and metro area using OFLC Wage Search before negotiating, so you can identify whether an offer reflects a legitimate rate for your work location.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an LLM Engineer role qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
LLM Engineer positions typically qualify when your degree is in computer science, data science, electrical engineering, or another STEM-designated field. The role itself must also relate directly to your degree under the I-983 training plan your DSO certifies. Review your degree's CIP code against the official STEM-designated degree program list maintained by DHS to confirm eligibility before applying.
How do I find LLM Engineer jobs where the employer is E-Verify enrolled?
Migrate Mate filters LLM Engineer roles by employers with confirmed E-Verify enrollment, so you're not wasting applications on companies that can't legally hire STEM OPT students. You can also cross-check any employer directly through the E-Verify employer search tool. Don't rely on a recruiter's verbal confirmation since enrollment status can lapse or was never established.
What should my I-983 training plan say for an LLM Engineer position?
Your I-983 must describe how the work directly applies knowledge from your STEM degree. For LLM engineering, that means listing specific training goals such as fine-tuning transformer models, building retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, or optimizing inference latency. Generic descriptions like 'software development' are often rejected by DSOs. Tie each objective to a course, project, or competency from your degree program.
What happens to my STEM OPT authorization if my employer loses E-Verify enrollment?
If your employer loses E-Verify enrollment or withdraws, you're no longer authorized to work for them on STEM OPT. USCIS requires E-Verify participation to remain active throughout your employment, not just at the time of your extension approval. You'd need to either find a new E-Verify-enrolled employer or work with your DSO on next steps before your grace period expires.
Does cap-gap protection apply if my H-1B is selected while I'm on STEM OPT?
Yes. If your employer files an H-1B visa petition on your behalf before your STEM OPT EAD expires and you're selected in the lottery, cap-gap rules automatically extend your F-1 status and work authorization through September 30 of that fiscal year. Your STEM OPT EAD's explicit expiration date becomes irrelevant during this period. USCIS confirms cap-gap coverage based on your I-94 and the petition receipt notice.