TikTok might have accidentally revealed the new features it's working on thanks to a hiring spree with one particular focus
If you want to have a proper catch up with family and friends, TikTok might not be the app you head to first.
But it seems the short-form video platform might be looking to change that, as it’s advertising a slew of job openings focused on improving its messaging services.
Several of the open postings on TikTok’s careers page are for roles within the company’s messaging team. While the job ads acknowledge that the app’s messaging feature is still in its “infancy,” the social media platform tells prospective employees its ambition is for the service “to facilitate meaningful user connections.”
TikTok’s current messaging service isn’t as easy to navigate as some other social media sites’ direct messaging functions. Although sharing videos is easy enough, messaging is not so straightforward.
To send a direct message to another person on the app, the user must click on the recipient’s profile and then select a relatively small, unannotated, image of a paper plane.
Users can also find direct messages through the inbox tab at the bottom of the app, though this section is also filled with new follower requests and activity updates from people the user is following.
However, the platform may have accidentally revealed its intentions to update and improve the feature with its job postings—among them, a role entirely focused on direct messaging.
The product manager, who will be based in Singapore, is set to be part of a “growing” messaging team, according to the post, and will be required to work with stakeholders across policy, legal, trust and safety, human moderators and more.
Other new roles which will form part of the growing messaging team include engineering leads, back end tech leads and software engineers.
TikTok did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
ByteDance-owned TikTok made it clear, though, that it isn’t taking any chances with regulations: job filings include a specific focus on making sure parents who aren’t on the app have oversight of who their children are speaking to on the platform.
The app has come under intense scrutiny in recent years from governments and regulators across the globe, with talks of the app being banned in multiple countries including the United States.
TikTok taking on top tech
For many years, platforms owned by Facebook parent company Meta dominated the social media sector—including Facebook itself, Instagram, messaging platform WhatsApp and new launch Threads.
Although Elon Musk-owned X—formerly Twitter—is hoping to shake up the industry by transforming into the “everything app,” TikTok emerged during lockdown as a disruptor to be reckoned with.
With more than a billion users today, the app was reportedly downloaded 850 million times in 2020, prompting a raft of updates from its rivals.
Instagram launched Reels the same year—a new feature allowing users to post 15-second long videos.
TikTok videos recorded within the app can run for 15 seconds to three minutes, though the platform allows clips to be up to 10 minutes long if they’re uploaded to the app.
In 2021, Meta launched Reels on Facebook in the U.S.—also announcing the launch of a new bonus program paying creators for their work on the site.
TikTok pays its influencers via an ad-revenue sharing system, as well as built-in functions like virtual gifts and a Creator Fund that rewards users who reach certain follower and view counts, according to Insider.
