TikTok

Machine Learning Scientist Internship Interview Experience - San Jose, California

October 1, 2025

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

First round: 40 mins about resume, 20 mins with LeetCode hard, maximum increasing subsequence in a 2D matrix.

Second round: 40 mins about resume, 20 mins about directly writing logistic regression weights update.

Questions

LeetCode hard: maximum increasing subsequence in a 2D matrix.

Write logistic regression weights update.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the TikTok Machine Learning Scientist Internship role in San Jose, California.

Success Rate

100%

Pass Rate

TikTok's interview process for their Machine Learning Scientist Internship roles in San Jose, California is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for TikTok's Machine Learning Scientist Internship interview process in San Jose, California.

TikTok Work Experiences

Fast Paced Chinese Startup

Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Work fast with little structure and find the best way to help the company. Good food and social atmosphere. Great perks, such as free charging (while it lasted). Good if you can speak Chinese.

Cons: Poor if you can't speak Chinese, as everyone needs to work with the China teams and you will be relying on auto-translate for your meetings. Stressful culture with high expectations but ill-defined processes to get there. Many nice, helpful people, however.

Fast Paced Chinese Startup

Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Work fast with little structure and find the best way to help the company. Good food and social atmosphere. Great perks, such as free charging (while it lasted). Good if you can speak Chinese.

Cons: Poor if you can't speak Chinese, as everyone needs to work with the China teams and you will be relying on auto-translate for your meetings. Stressful culture with high expectations but ill-defined processes to get there. Many nice, helpful people, however.

Hard-working place

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

February 7, 2025

Pros: It's good if you're prepared to grind.

Cons: Bad if you want to coast.

Hard-working place

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

February 7, 2025

Pros: It's good if you're prepared to grind.

Cons: Bad if you want to coast.

Fast Growth, Long Hours

Interactive Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Growing fast, many opportunities, flexibility, new products.

Cons: pool WLB, over time working, lack of standard workflow

Fast Growth, Long Hours

Interactive Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Growing fast, many opportunities, flexibility, new products.

Cons: pool WLB, over time working, lack of standard workflow

Fast Paced Chinese Startup

Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) • Former Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Work fast with little structure and find the best way to help the company. Good food and social atmosphere. Great perks, such as free charging (while it lasted). Good if you can speak Chinese.

Cons: Poor if you can't speak Chinese, as everyone needs to work with the China teams and you will be relying on auto-translate for your meetings. Stressful culture with high expectations but ill-defined processes to get there. Many nice, helpful people, however.

4.0
Fast Paced Chinese Startup
Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) • Former Employee
San Jose, California, United States
May 15, 2024
Pros: Work fast with little structure and find the best way to help the company. Good food and social atmosphere. Great perks, such as free charging (while it lasted). Good if you can speak Chinese.
Cons: Poor if you can't speak Chinese, as everyone needs to work with the China teams and you will be relying on auto-translate for your meetings. Stressful culture with high expectations but ill-defined processes to get there. Many nice, helpful people, however.

Hard-working place

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

February 7, 2025

Pros: It's good if you're prepared to grind.

Cons: Bad if you want to coast.

3.0
Hard-working place
Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
February 7, 2025
Pros: It's good if you're prepared to grind.
Cons: Bad if you want to coast.

Fast Growth, Long Hours

Interactive Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Growing fast, many opportunities, flexibility, new products.

Cons: pool WLB, over time working, lack of standard workflow

3.0
Fast Growth, Long Hours
Interactive Engineer • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
March 13, 2024
Pros: Growing fast, many opportunities, flexibility, new products.
Cons: pool WLB, over time working, lack of standard workflow

TikTok Interview Questions

Generate Parentheses

Given a number 'n', generate all possible well-formed (balanced) parentheses strings of length 2*n. For instance, if n=3, you need to create all valid combinations like '((()))', '(()())', etc.

RecursionStrings

Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Find the length of the longest substring within a given string that contains no repeating characters. The substring must be contiguous.

StringsTwo PointersSliding Windows

Search in Rotated Sorted Array

You're given a sorted array that has been rotated, and a target value. Find the index of the target value in the rotated array, or return -1 if it's not present.

ArraysBinary Search

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