TikTok

Software Engineer (Internship) Interview Experience - San Jose, California

August 1, 2024

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I took the online assessment. It was pretty difficult but not as bad as was made out to be.

It asked 4-5 questions about general computer science, followed by 2 LeetCode mediums.

The time was liberal.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 30 interview experiences for the TikTok Software Engineer (Internship) role in San Jose, California.

Success Rate

13%

Pass Rate

TikTok's interview process for their Software Engineer (Internship) roles in San Jose, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive43%

Neutral57%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for TikTok's Software Engineer (Internship) interview process in San Jose, California.

TikTok Work Experiences

Great Team, Awful Balance

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 11, 2024

Pros: Motivating the team, a great product, and many opportunities.

Cons: Bad work-life balance. Probably the worst in Bay Area tech.

Great Team, Awful Balance

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 11, 2024

Pros: Motivating the team, a great product, and many opportunities.

Cons: Bad work-life balance. Probably the worst in Bay Area tech.

Good company, but with a lot of anxiety

Senior Machine Learning Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Perks, salary, and tech stack.

Cons: Mandarin docs, no knowledge transfer, and highly competitive.

Good company, but with a lot of anxiety

Senior Machine Learning Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Perks, salary, and tech stack.

Cons: Mandarin docs, no knowledge transfer, and highly competitive.

TikTok - Someone hates it, someone likes it

Machine Learning Intern • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

August 24, 2025

Pros: • Competitive compensation and comprehensive company policies. • Excellent in-house cafeteria with a wide variety of food options. • Strong and modern technical stack. • Robust alumni network, especially from CMU and other top schools.

Cons: Certain compliance risks exist due to the nature of the business. TTP (Trusted Technology Partner) environments impose strict access control, making it difficult for regular engineers to debug user-level details.

TikTok - Someone hates it, someone likes it

Machine Learning Intern • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

August 24, 2025

Pros: • Competitive compensation and comprehensive company policies. • Excellent in-house cafeteria with a wide variety of food options. • Strong and modern technical stack. • Robust alumni network, especially from CMU and other top schools.

Cons: Certain compliance risks exist due to the nature of the business. TTP (Trusted Technology Partner) environments impose strict access control, making it difficult for regular engineers to debug user-level details.

Great Team, Awful Balance

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

October 11, 2024

Pros: Motivating the team, a great product, and many opportunities.

Cons: Bad work-life balance. Probably the worst in Bay Area tech.

5.0
Great Team, Awful Balance
Software Engineer II • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
October 11, 2024
Pros: Motivating the team, a great product, and many opportunities.
Cons: Bad work-life balance. Probably the worst in Bay Area tech.

Good company, but with a lot of anxiety

Senior Machine Learning Engineer • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

Pros: Perks, salary, and tech stack.

Cons: Mandarin docs, no knowledge transfer, and highly competitive.

3.0
Good company, but with a lot of anxiety
Senior Machine Learning Engineer • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
April 29, 2025
Pros: Perks, salary, and tech stack.
Cons: Mandarin docs, no knowledge transfer, and highly competitive.

TikTok - Someone hates it, someone likes it

Machine Learning Intern • Current Employee

San Jose, California, United States

August 24, 2025

Pros: • Competitive compensation and comprehensive company policies. • Excellent in-house cafeteria with a wide variety of food options. • Strong and modern technical stack. • Robust alumni network, especially from CMU and other top schools.

Cons: Certain compliance risks exist due to the nature of the business. TTP (Trusted Technology Partner) environments impose strict access control, making it difficult for regular engineers to debug user-level details.

5.0
TikTok - Someone hates it, someone likes it
Machine Learning Intern • Current Employee
San Jose, California, United States
August 24, 2025
Pros: • Competitive compensation and comprehensive company policies. • Excellent in-house cafeteria with a wide variety of food options. • Strong and modern technical stack. • Robust alumni network, especially from CMU and other top schools.
Cons: Certain compliance risks exist due to the nature of the business. TTP (Trusted Technology Partner) environments impose strict access control, making it difficult for regular engineers to debug user-level details.

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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