Senior Software Development Engineer, Quality Platform & AI Test Automation

$202K - $368K Seattle, WA, US Senior AI Product Manager

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About This Role

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Technology

Senior Software Development Engineer, Quality Platform \& AI Test Automation

Location

:

Seattle

Employment Type

:

Regular

Job Code

:

A33067A

Responsibilities

The e\-commerce industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has become a hotly contested space amongst leading internet companies. With millions of loyal users globally, we believe TikTok is an ideal platform to deliver a brand new and better e\-commerce experience to our users. Our quality assurance engineering team is responsible for keeping an e\-commerce ecosystem stable, secure, and intuitive for our users. We are looking for passionate and talented people to join us as we drive the future of e\-commerce here at TikTok.

What you'll do:

  • Build test platforms, automation frameworks, validation services, and AI\-powered tools to improve testing efficiency and release quality.
  • Develop AI skills/agents for QA/RD scenarios such as requirement analysis, test case generation, test data generation, log analysis, defect triage, root cause analysis, regression selection, and test reporting.
  • Build self\-service capabilities that help QA/RD teams execute validation, monitor test results, assess release readiness, and reduce manual testing effort.
  • Integrate automation and AI outputs with test management systems, dashboards, ticketing systems, and release processes.
  • Partner with QA and RD teams to identify testing pain points and convert them into reusable automation platforms or AI\-based solutions.
  • Work closely with global QA, RD, product, and business teams across multiple countries/regions to support international e\-commerce scenarios, localization needs, and cross\-market release quality.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

  • Bachelor degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
  • 5\+ years of hands\-on software development experience, preferably in test platform, automation, AI tooling, developer productivity, or quality engineering related areas.
  • Experience building test automation frameworks, validation tools, internal productivity tools, or CI/CD\-related engineering solutions.
  • Strong understanding of software testing concepts, including requirement analysis, test design, regression testing, defect analysis, and release validation.
  • Strong engineering sense in building reliable, maintainable, and scalable solutions rather than one\-off scripts.
  • Ability to work closely with QA and RD teams, understand real testing pain points, and turn them into practical engineering solutions.
  • Able to collaborate with cross\-functional teams in an international environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience building reusable testing infrastructure, automation platforms, AI tools, or internal productivity tools used by multiple teams.
  • Experience applying AI/LLM capabilities to improve testing efficiency, such as test case generation, test data generation, log analysis, defect triage, root cause analysis, regression selection, risk assessment, or test reporting.
  • Experience working on complex systems where quality depends on cross\-service validation, data consistency, configuration correctness, or end\-to\-end business flows.
  • Experience integrating automation or AI outputs with test management systems, dashboards, ticketing systems, or release processes.

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $202160 \- $368220 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 TikTok

TikTok is the leading destination for short\-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is 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 bring joy \- a mission we work towards every day.

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. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. 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

TikTok 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 TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. 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.

TikTok Accommodation

TikTok 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

Salary Context

This $202K-$368K range is above the 75th percentile for AI Product Manager roles in our dataset (median: $191K across 155 roles with salary data).

View full AI Product Manager salary data →

Role Details

Company TikTok
Title Senior Software Development Engineer, Quality Platform & AI Test Automation
Location Seattle, WA, US
Experience Senior
Salary $202K - $368K
Remote No

About This Role

AI Product Managers define what AI features get built and why. They translate business problems into ML-solvable tasks, work with engineering to scope model requirements, and own the metrics that determine if an AI feature is working. The role requires a rare combination of technical fluency and product instinct.

Unlike traditional product management, AI PM work involves managing uncertainty at a fundamental level. Your model might work 90% of the time. What happens the other 10%? What's the user experience when the AI is wrong? How do you measure 'good enough' for a probabilistic system? These questions don't have easy answers, and the AI PM is the person responsible for finding them.

Across the 3,824 AI roles we're tracking, AI Product Manager positions make up 5% of the market. At TikTok, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week includes: reviewing model evaluation results with the ML team, defining success metrics for a new AI feature, conducting user research on how customers respond to AI-generated outputs, writing product requirements that include accuracy thresholds and fallback behaviors, and presenting the AI roadmap to leadership. You're the translator between technical capability and business value.

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

Skills in Demand for This Role

Python (51% of roles) Aws (31% of roles) Azure (23% of roles) Rag (23% of roles) Gcp (19% of roles) Prompt Engineering (15% of roles) Pytorch (15% of roles) Claude (14% of roles)

Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.

The differentiator is AI-specific product thinking: knowing when to use ML vs. heuristics, understanding the cost of training data collection, designing graceful degradation for model failures, and building products that improve with usage data. Experience with AI safety, bias mitigation, and responsible AI deployment is increasingly important.

Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI Product Manager roles pay a median of $213,800 based on 518 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($285K) sits 33% above the category median. Disclosed range: $202K to $368K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,380; Mid: $160,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $243,000; VP: $250,000.

TikTok AI Hiring

TikTok has 24 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer, AI Product Manager, AI Agent Developer. Positions span San Jose, CA, US, Seattle, WA, US, San Francisco, CA, US. Compensation range: $168K - $450K.

Location Context

AI roles in Seattle pay a median of $228,000 across 1,009 tracked positions. That's 14% above the national median.

Career Path

Common paths into AI Product Manager roles include Product Manager, Data Analyst, Technical Program Manager.

From here, career progression typically leads toward Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI.

The most effective path is PM experience plus self-directed AI education. Take Andrew Ng's courses, build a small ML project, and learn enough Python to read model evaluation code. The goal isn't to become an ML engineer. It's to have credibility in technical conversations and to understand what's possible, what's hard, and what's a bad idea.

What to Expect in Interviews

AI interviews typically combine coding challenges (Python-focused), system design questions tailored to the role, and discussions about your experience with relevant tools and frameworks. Strong candidates demonstrate both technical depth and the ability to make pragmatic engineering tradeoffs. Prepare portfolio projects that demonstrate end-to-end capability rather than isolated skills.

When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 3,824 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 119 entry-level, 1,813 mid-level, 1,472 senior, and 420 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 16% of the market (613 positions). The remaining 3,187 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 31 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 51 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 401 roles).

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 3,824 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,702), Data Scientist (281), AI Software Engineer (258). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (119) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,813) and senior (1,472) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 420 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 16% of all AI roles (613 positions), with 3,187 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $200,000. Top-quartile roles start at $253,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $142,800. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,968 postings), Aws (1,203 postings), Azure (882 postings), Rag (877 postings), Gcp (735 postings), Prompt Engineering (587 postings), Pytorch (586 postings), Claude (554 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 518 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI Product Manager positions is $213,800. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.
About 16% of the 3,824 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
TikTok is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI Product Manager positions include Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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