Hey everyone!

Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading :)

Okay, today's company list is kind of ridiculous: ByteDance, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, Affirm, Delta, and Raytheon all posted something worth looking at.

Color is the one smaller name here, but it is a proper 2025/2026 new-grad SWE role paying $125K-$140K, so it earned its spot.

Fair warning that a few of the highest-paying AI roles are PhD-only. I called those out so nobody wastes ten minutes getting excited before reaching the requirements.

Let's get into it!

9 roles
5 new grad and early-career
4 internships
7 salary-listed

Best companies: ByteDance, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, Affirm, Delta, Raytheon, Color, and Leidos.

Level: New grad, PhD
Location: San Jose, CA
Pay: $213K-$450K

TikTok's parent company is hiring 2027 PhD grads to build the high-speed network software behind large AI and LLM workloads. This is very specific: C/C++, Python or Go, plus serious networking work around RDMA, congestion control, or communication frameworks.

Level: New grad / early career
Location: Remote, US
Pay: $165K-$225K

Affirm builds the pay-over-time option you have probably seen at checkout. You would review application code, investigate vulnerabilities, and help product teams fix security problems before they ship. Labs, CTFs, bug bounties, projects, and coursework can all count toward the 0-2 years they ask for.

Level: New grad
Location: South San Francisco, CA
Pay: $125K-$140K

Color runs cancer screening and virtual cancer care programs across the US. This one is specifically for 2025 and 2026 CS grads, with patient-facing product work across Python, Django, React, AWS, and SQL.

Used ChatGPT to help with your resume or cover letter? Give it one last pass before a recruiter reads it. AntiGPT cleans up the stiff AI wording so the final version sounds more like you.

Amazon needs someone to keep AWS hardware and networks alive. It is more hands-on infrastructure than pure SWE, but if you like Linux, networking, and fixing physical servers, the pay is solid. Berwick, PA, $30.91-$54.18/hour. They ask for at least one year of networking and Linux experience.

Leidos is a large government and defense contractor. You would build tactical decision software for Navy sonar systems, and they only ask for about six months of hands-on experience. You do need to be a US citizen and able to get a security clearance. Bethesda, $58K-$105K.

Meta's robotics team is researching how robot hands estimate and adapt to the physical state of an object. You will need a PhD track plus Python, PyTorch, and real work in robotics or state estimation. Redmond.

TikTok's Trust & Safety team is building multimodal foundation models and AI agents to catch harmful content across more than 200 languages. This is another PhD role, with Python, Rust, or C++ and deep-learning experience. Seattle, $71.25/hour.

Delta's innovation team wants a grad student who can build ML products with Python, TensorFlow, or PyTorch. You would work on customer and employee experiences, and yes, flight benefits are part of the deal. Atlanta, Fall 2026.

Raytheon is hiring a 2027 SWE intern to build and integrate software in Java on Linux. US citizenship and the ability to get a security clearance are required. State College, PA, with a listed range of $37K-$82K/year.

For the AI roles, put one project near the top of your resume and explain what you built, the data you used, and what improved. “Worked with PyTorch” is not enough.

Best of luck!

See you shortly,

--

David

Connect with me here if you have any questions, or want to chat about opportunities!