Hiring: Staff Software Engineer — Data Privacy & Infrastructure Company: TikTok USDS Joint Venture Location: San Jose, CA Job Posted Time: 2026-09-10 12:01:39 Employment Type: Hybrid Target Skills & Keywords : Apache, ClickHouse, Encryption, GDPR, HDFS, Hive, Kafka, Kubernetes, Machine Learning, MySQL, Spark, Systems Design About the job Experience: •5+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of architecting, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems in production. Required Skills: •Lead highly complex, cross-functional technical initiatives that serve as the prerequisite for all AI Safety—safeguarding the integrity of petabyte-scale data while deploying cutting-edge privacy techniques. •Next-Gen Privacy & PETs Strategy: Serving as the key subject matter expert to research, evaluate, and productionalize advanced PETs (such as Differential Privacy, Homomorphic Encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and Secure Multi-Party Computation) to unlock secure, privacy-preserving ML training and analytics. •Data Inventory & Taxonomy: Directing the design of self-healing, automated scanning engines capable of identifying data across global, petabyte-scale Data Lakes and real-time streams with minimal performance overhead. •Scalable Onboarding & Risk Mitigation: Designing highly scalable, self-service frameworks and migration playbooks that allow product teams to onboard new applications into the DLM scope autonomously. You will define clear, tiered risk-mitigation pathways and ensure integration happens with optimal cost-efficiency and minimal developer friction. •Lineage & Traceability: Defining the technical standards and system design for tracking the "genealogy" of data from ingestion to complex machine learning training sets. •Automated Remediation: Overseeing the engineering of zero-tolerance, high-reliability "Right to be Forgotten" pipelines that execute near-instantaneous deletion across disparate offline and online storage. •Technical Leadership & Vision: Define the architectural blueprint and long-term technical roadmap for the DLM Platform and PET integration. Elevate our "Privacy-as-Code" vision from concept to production-grade reality. •DLM Platform Architecture: Lead the design and scaling of high-throughput, fault-tolerant backend services managing data retention, archival, and purging policies across heterogeneous engines. Qualifications: •Industry Experience: 5+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of architecting, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems in production. •Big Data & Infrastructure: Strong experience in leading technical initiatives within high-volume data ecosystems (e.g., Hive, Spark, Kafka, Kubernetes) and optimizing storage/compute pipelines. •Technical Leadership: Proven experience leading complex, multi-quarter technical projects from ambiguity to successful deployment, influencing stakeholders across multiple teams. •Developer Platform & Migration Experience: Demonstrated track record of driving large-scale platform migrations or designing self-service SDKs/platforms that successfully onboarded dozens of tenant teams with clear risk-containment strategies. •Cost Optimization (FinOps): Experience in designing resource-efficient architectures, managing cloud/on-prem infrastructure costs, or implementing data lifecycle strategies specifically aimed at ROI and storage cost reduction. •Privacy-by-Design & PETs Expertise: Deep prior experience in Privacy Engineering, GDPR/CCPA compliance architectures, or hands-on application of PETs in high-scale data platforms. •Data Lineage & Cataloging: Experience designing or heavily customizing metadata catalogs or lineage tools (e.g., Apache Atlas, Amundsen, or advanced proprietary systems). •Scale-Driven Impact: Experience designing "Data Deletion/Purging" frameworks that operate reliably at extreme scale—where a single request triggers cascade deletions across thousands of distributed nodes with strict SLA guarantees. •On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.​ Interested candidates, please apply directly through the job posting on company's career page or try via AI auto apply on this platform. Don't miss this opportunity to join a forward-thinking team!