Responsibilities
About Team The Foundational Technology team is at the core of ByteDance’s global infrastructure, delivering high-availability, performant software components and foundational services. We focus on low-level storage and network domains, with ongoing projects including the development of in-house metadata storage engines for ByteDance’s ultrascale Kubernetes clusters. As an international team, we thrive on innovation and collaboration, working with both technical infrastructure teams (compute, storage, databases) and upper-layer business units (advertising, payments, AI) to solve critical system challenges. We are looking for talented individuals to join us for this future position in 2026. As a graduate, you will get unparalleled opportunities for you to kickstart your career, pursue bold ideas and explore limitless growth opportunities. Co-create a future driven by your inspiration with Bytedance. Successful candidates must be able to commit between January 5,2026 to December 14, 2026 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 As a software engineer on our team, you will: - Be responsible for the design and development of high-performance metadata storage services, delivering features including distributed coordination, distributed locks, key-value storage, and service discovery. - Be responsible for delivering automated CI/deployment pipelines and disaster-recovery solutions for metadata storage services. - Work with SREs to keep the metadata storage services up and running. - Be the consultant to deliver customized metadata solutions to partner teams in infrastructure (compute, storage, databases, AI, etc.) and upper-layer businesses (video-streaming, ads, payment etc.); you will be deeply involved in system architecture design and optimization based on business scenarios.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications: - Currently pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, with an expected grduation date in 2026. - Strong programming skills in C++ or Go in Linux environments, with experience in writing clean, maintainable and testable code. - Have a solid understanding of CS Fundamentals: basic data structures (lists, queues, stacks, trees, graphs, hash tables) and algorithms (binary search, quick sort, divide and conquer, backtracking), operating system (processes, threads, mutexes, semaphores, deadlock, paging, segmentation, file system), network (OSI models, TCP/UDP, IP addressing, HTTP, DNS). - Have a basic understanding of distributed systems (e.g. CAP theorem), databases (e.g. relational vs nosql, transaction, isolation levels), and storage systems (e.g. replication, erasure encoding). Preferred Qualifications: - Familiarity with advanced data structures (LSM trees, B+ trees) and algorithms (Paxos, Raft). *Online courses and books such as MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems and Designing Data-Intensive Applications (DDIA) are good study resources for those topics. - Hands-on or research experience with distributed systems such as HDFS, Colossus, Spanner, Chubby, ZooKeeper, etcd. - Familiarity with linux system programming (epoll, io uring) and high performance networking (RDMA, DPDK)
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $118657 - $259000 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:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
About Us
Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.
Why Join ByteDance
Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are 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 enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.
As ByteDancers, 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. 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
ByteDance 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 ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. 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.
Reasonable Accommodation
ByteDance 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