Software Engineer, C/C++ SDK Performance Optimization
TikTok
San Jose, CA · Posted November 13, 2026
Just laid off? Start here: a plan for the first weeks
More in California job market · Software Engineer jobs in San Jose, CA (61) · All Software Engineer jobs (1,996) · Technology & Software · Engineering jobs
More roles at TikTok
- TikTok Shop - Head of Listing Quality - US · Seattle, WA
- Machine Learning Engineer, TikTok Brand Ads · San Jose, CA
- Head of Global Events and Experiential Marketing, GIMC GBM - GBS
- TikTok Shop - Category Manager, Personal Care, K Beauty
- Research Scientist in Generative AI Graduate (Intelligent Creation) - 2026 Start (PhD) · San Jose, CA
- TikTok Shop - Partner Development Manager, ISV Commerce Partnerships · Seattle, WA
Similar jobs
- Engineer I, Manufacturing Engineer · Entegris · San Luis Obispo, CA
- Cryogenic Mechanical Engineer · PsiQuantum · Milpitas, CA
- Calibration and Equipment Systems Engineer I · Penumbra · Alameda, CA
- Regulatory Affairs Engineer · SpaceX · Hawthorne, CA
- New Graduate Engineer, Aerospace Software (Starfall) · SpaceX · Hawthorne, CA
- Early Career RF Mission Systems Engineer, Air Dominance & Strike · Anduril Industries · Costa Mesa, CA
Where San Jose, CA ranks
Where San Jose, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Best cities for marketing pay after cost of living$204k · of 16
- #1Best cities for aerospace and defense pay after cost of living$187k · of 19
- #2Best cities for security pay after cost of living$220k · of 10
- #3Best cities for technology pay after cost of living$205k · of 80
- #5Best cities for technology jobs1,449 openings · of 100
- #5Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the West Coast162 jobs · of 47
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing does not state pay. Across 696 open software engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $168,000 to $251,000 and the median is $201,500.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
TikTok has filed one layoff notice in the last twelve months, covering 250 workers, most recently August 2026. These are public filings with state labor departments, and an open role can sit alongside them. See the filings
Skills this job asks for
Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.
About the job
About this team We own the Effect SDK powering TikTok's camera and creation experience — the system behind every filter, AR effect, and visual effect used by hundreds of millions of creators every day. This role sits at the business architecture layer of a self-developed rendering engine, partnering closely with rendering, algorithm, and camera pipeline teams to deliver smooth, low-power effect experiences across a massive range of mobile devices.
Responsibilities - Drive end-to-end experience optimization of the effect pipeline during shooting — diagnose and resolve frame drops, jank, thermal throttling, and power consumption issues on real user devices. - Profile the full camera→effect→render→encode pipeline; identify bottlenecks across CPU, GPU, memory, and thread scheduling, and land measurable improvements. - Collaborate with the rendering engine team to understand and leverage low-level capabilities, and with the on-device algorithm team to co-optimize model integration and execution. - Build and evolve the business architecture of the Effect SDK (Native, cross-platform for iOS & Android), turning product requirements into robust, maintainable modules. - Localize and fix technical problems and bugs reported from production, with a strong ownership mindset. - Learn new techniques quickly, communicate clearly, and collaborate well across teams.
Minimum Qualifications - B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science with 1+ years of relevant experience. - Proficient in C/C++ - Strong interest in performance on mobile devices — you enjoy digging into profilers and chasing down the last millisecond. - Familiar with iOS and/or Android development, and has experience in video and image processing related applications on mobile phones
Preferred Qualifications - Hands-on experience with mobile profiling tools (Xcode Instruments, Perfetto / Systrace, Android GPU Inspector, RenderDoc, etc.). - Experience optimizing frame rate stability, memory footprint, thermal, or battery consumption in a consumer-scale mobile app. - Familiarity with camera pipelines (AVFoundation / Camera2 / CameraX) or real-time video processing. - Experience with AR, game engine, or real-time graphics development. - Experience integrating on-device inference frameworks (CoreML, TNN, MNN, NCNN, TFLite) and optimizing their runtime cost. - Basic understanding of graphics rendering APIs (OpenGL ES / Metal / Vulkan); shader programming experience is a plus