Software Architect – Open Platform

About the role

The TikTok Open Platform team is seeking a Software Architect to shape the next generation of cross‑platform features that connect developers, TikTok users, and the broader ecosystem. You will own the end‑to‑end architecture of API platforms, partner integration frameworks, and core services that enable high‑traffic, low‑latency interactions worldwide.

Key responsibilities

• Define and drive architecture for key Open Platform domains, including APIs, SDKs, and in‑app services.
• Set technical strategy and standards for service design, data models, scalability, observability, reliability, and security across multiple teams.
• Lead design reviews and align product, infrastructure, security, and compliance stakeholders in various regions.
• Identify and resolve scalability and reliability bottlenecks for globally distributed systems.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and raise engineering quality and operational excellence.
• Evaluate new technologies and guide pragmatic adoption of platform frameworks, cloud patterns, and distributed data systems.
• Drive cross‑team execution of architecture roadmaps, risk management, and delivery governance.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in software engineering or related field.
• Significant experience owning system architecture for large‑scale distributed or platform products.
• Proven track record designing microservice architectures with high availability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization.
• Strong understanding of API design (REST, gRPC), authentication/authorization, rate limiting, versioning, and developer experience.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems fundamentals such as consistency, concurrency, caching, messaging/streaming, and multi‑region resilience.
• Excellent cross‑functional communication skills and ability to influence without authority.

Required skills

• REST and gRPC API design
• OAuth and other authentication/authorization mechanisms
• Microservices architecture
• Distributed systems concepts (consistency, concurrency, caching, messaging/streaming)
• Multi‑region resilience and fault tolerance
• Observability practices (metrics, logging, tracing)
• SRE principles and incident response
• Cloud platforms and platform frameworks