Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Developer AI

ByteDance’s Dev Infra team is building the systems behind the Dev AI initiative, with a focus on intelligent software engineering at scale. In this role, you will design and improve machine learning and large language model capabilities that support code generation, automated testing, debugging, code understanding, and agentic workflows intended to boost developer productivity.

This position is based onsite in San Jose, CA and targets candidates with 5+ years of relevant experience. The salary range is USD 218,400 - 480,000 per year.

Responsibilities

• Develop and enhance machine learning and large language model systems for software engineering tasks, including code generation, unit test generation, and debugging.
• Build AI-powered developer agents and intelligent workflows that can reason over large codebases, work with development environments and tools, execute multi-step tasks, and assist engineers across the software development lifecycle.
• Improve model and agent performance using techniques such as prompt engineering, context engineering, retrieval, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, tool-use design, and agent harness engineering.
• Create high-quality training and evaluation data pipelines for software engineering tasks, including data collection, filtering, synthesis, labeling, and hard-example mining.
• Apply advances in large language models, code intelligence, program analysis, reinforcement learning, and autonomous software engineering to real-world developer productivity problems at scale.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or above in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of relevant industry or research experience in machine learning, large language models, code intelligence, AI-powered developer tools, or related areas.
• Strong programming skills in one or more languages: Python, Go, Java, C++, JavaScript, or TypeScript.
• Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, machine learning, operating systems, databases, and core system design principles.
• Experience owning complex machine learning projects end-to-end, from problem formulation and data construction through model development, evaluation, deployment, and production iteration.
• Strong system design and engineering skills, including building scalable, reliable, and efficient machine learning systems or AI-powered applications.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to drive complex technical projects across teams.

Technologies

• Python
• Go
• Java
• C++
• JavaScript
• TypeScript

Benefits

• Day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) savings plan with company match
• Paid parental leave
• Short-term and long-term disability coverage
• Life insurance
• Wellbeing benefits
• 10 paid holidays per year
• 10 paid sick days per year
• 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure)
• Additional discretionary bonuses/incentives and restricted stock units (role may be eligible)

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or leading AI systems for software engineering, including code generation, coding agents, unit test generation, debugging, or code review.
• Deep experience with large language models and one or more post-training or improvement techniques such as supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, preference optimization, prompt engineering, context engineering, retrieval, or model evaluation.
• Experience designing and improving agentic systems, including tool-using LLMs, coding agents, agent harnesses, MCP, agent skills, planning, memory, or multi-step execution workflows.
• Experience building large-scale training data, evaluation datasets, benchmarks, or experimentation pipelines for machine learning or code intelligence systems.
• Strong understanding of software engineering and code intelligence techniques such as program analysis, compilers, static analysis, code search, repository indexing, testing, and debugging.
• Publications, patents, open-source contributions, or demonstrated technical leadership in machine learning, large language models, code intelligence, developer tools, or AI for software engineering.

Compensation description (annually): The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $218,400 - $480,000 per year.

Reasonable accommodation: ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in its recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs, or other reasons protected by applicable laws. For assistance or a reasonable accommodation, reach out at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request

Los Angeles County (Unincorporated) candidates: Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered 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. The company notes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship on job duties, potentially resulting in withdrawal of a conditional offer, including tasks involving interacting with internal/external clients or colleagues and handling confidential information and access to IT systems.