After ByteDance
- 12%Joined a startup17
- 50%Joined a big company72
- 38%Elsewhere
Shares of those who moved on, by their next stop.
People who leave ByteDance most often go to Meta, Google and TikTok. Of them, 12% go somewhere small. The median tenure is 1y 8m
Not ByteDance's headcount: these are the engineers in the Zelcast network and the profiles run through the Eng Scorer. 207 people on a map of 67,181, No. 112 on it by people. Updated September 30, 2026.
- People on the map
- 2070.3% of everyone on the map
- There now
- 5024% of the people here
- Moved on
- 15776% of the people here
- Median tenure
- 1y 8mmiddle half 10m to 3y 1m
Came from, went to
Ribbon width is the number of people who made the move. Most arrive from Meta. Most leave for Meta (18% of recorded departures).
36 of 150 recorded arrivals shown, 114 more from 104 other companies69 of 147 recorded departures shown, 78 more to 68 other companies
How long people stay
27%<1y
31%1-2y
28%2-4y
14%4-7y
1%7y+
152 stays with both a start and an end on the record.
Who comes and goes, by year
<3015
0016
5417
6418
13719
361420
433621
332622
291623
231624
183425
7726
joined left2026 is a partial year
2015 to 2026: 214 joined, 164 left.
Caliber
79mediantop 10%86
0Eng Scorer caliber, 65 scored99
Titles held here
- Software Engineer61
- Software Engineer Intern26
- Senior Software Engineer9
- Machine Learning Engineer8
- Research Intern8
- Research Scientist8
- Data Engineer5
- Senior Research Scientist4
8 most common titles, by people who held them.
First job on the record for 20% of people here.
Behind the median
Everyone here with an Eng Scorer read, placed in their caliber tier.
- 9%Strong6 people
- 35%Solid23 people
- 51%Emerging33 people
- 5%Unproven3 people
65 of the 207 people here carry an Eng Scorer tier.
6 of the 65 people here with a read sit in exceptional or strong, the top two of the five tiers, 9%. A tier is the band a caliber score falls in, so this is the same measurement as the median on the caliber card, opened up.
Whether a title rose here
The level of the first title recorded here, against the last.
31%Titles that rose43 of 140 classified people
- 31%Rose43 people
- 61%Stayed level85 people
- 9%Fell12 people
140 of the 207 people here had a title that could be placed on the ladder before and after.
A title rose when the last title recorded here sits higher on the ladder than the first. For someone with one title here who then left, it's measured against the first title of their next role. The ladder runs intern, junior, mid, senior, staff or manager, principal, director, VP, then founder or C-level. Titles that match no rung are left out rather than guessed, and product, program and project managers are left out entirely as a different ladder. What's left leans towards people who have left: someone still here on one recorded title has nothing to measure against.
Where they studied
- Carnegie Mellon20.9%
- UC Berkeley9.2%
- Shanghai Jiao Tong6.8%
- UIUC6.8%
- USC6.3%
- University of Michigan5.3%
- Georgia Tech4.9%
- Tsinghua4.9%
The 8 most listed schools among the 206 people here with a school on file.
43 of the 206 people here with a school on file list Carnegie Mellon, 19 list UC Berkeley and 14 list Shanghai Jiao Tong. A person can list more than one, so these overlap.
Public work
one square is one in a hundred
17%have a public GitHub account on their profile
36 of the 207 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts. An account the check missed reads the same as no account, so this is a floor.
31% is the median across the 857 companies that can show this figure.
Where they are now
68% of the people who have worked at ByteDance and list a location live in the San Francisco Bay Area today, against 41% of everyone on the map.
ByteDance
Everyone on the map
- 68%SF Bay Area140 · map 41%
- 9%New York18 · map 18%
- 9%Seattle18 · map 5%
- 5%Los Angeles10 · map 5%
- 3%Washington DC7 · map 13%
- 2%Pittsburgh5 · map 0.4%
- 4%Somewhere else9
All 207 people who worked at ByteDance list a location, and every share here is over them.
Where they live now, from the profile as it reads today, not where they sat while working at ByteDance: a metro here isn't an office there. The lower strip is the same metros across the whole map.
On the same resumes
Companies that show up most often alongside ByteDance, at any point in a career.
Key facts
- 207 people on the Zelcast alumni map have worked at ByteDance: 50 are there now, 157 have moved on.
- Most leave for Meta: 26 people, 18% of recorded departures. Then Google and TikTok.
- Most arrive from Meta: 10 people. Then Google and Amazon.
- Median tenure at ByteDance: 1y 8m, middle half 10m to 3y 1m.
- Of the people with a recorded next move after ByteDance, fewer than 3 went to a founder title next, 12% joined a company of 200 or fewer, and 50% joined one of 10,000 or more.
- Median Eng Scorer caliber here: 79 on the 0 to 99 scale, across 65 scored people.
- Most common title held here: Software Engineer, then Software Engineer Intern.
- Top school: Carnegie Mellon, listed by 43 of the 206 people here with one on file (20.9%). Then UC Berkeley (19).
- 68% of the 207 people here who list a location live in SF Bay Area today, against 41% across the map. Where they live now, not the office they sat in while they worked here.
- 17% of the 207 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts have a public GitHub.
- 43 rose, 85 stayed level, 12 fell, out of the 140 people here whose title could be placed on a ladder before and after.
About this data: built from 352,028 jobs across 67,181 engineers in the Zelcast network and Eng Scorer reads, updated September 30, 2026. A move counts when the next role starts within 24 months of leaving. Companies under 20 people on the map aren't shown, and destinations under 3 people fold into the totals. Caliber is the Eng Scorer score.
Worked at ByteDance? See how your profile reads to a startup hiring manager, and where it ranks among 67,181 engineers.
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