Social video platform TikTok is "rapidly growing" in the Seattle area, a company spokesperson told the Business Journal this week.
The company is currently hiring more than 110 people in the Seattle area, according to its website, including roles in engineering, product and human resources.
The spokesperson didn't respond to questions about whether the company plans to open an office in the Seattle area but did say TikTok is not growing as much in Seattle as the company is in Los Angeles, the Bay Area or New York City.
Some of the new roles seem tied to TikTok's push into e-commerce. TikTok and Shopify announced Tuesday the companies are expanding their partnership, and Shopfiy merchants can now place a shopping tab on their TikTok profiles. TikTok is hiring a commerce platform product manager in Seattle, as well as a retail solutions product manager and an e-commerce talent acquisition partner.
A responsibility in the job description for the commerce platform product manager reads to "explore potential e-commerce partners, develop models to integrate with partners' e-commerce affiliate."
TikTok is a product of the Chinese company ByteDance. The Chinese version of TikTok, called Douyin, launched in 2016, while TikTok launched the following year. TikTok allows users to share short videos and had been downloaded about 2 billion times globally as of August 2020.
Despite its popularity, TikTok has faced regulatory difficulties in the U.S. Former President Donald Trump signed an order in August last year threatening to ban the app if ByteDance didn't sell its U.S. TikTok operations to an American company. Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. emerged as a suitor, but its proposal was declined by ByteDance in September 2020. A deal from Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. to partner with TikTok was put on hold in February. In June, President Joe Biden reversed Trump's order threatening to ban TikTok.
TikTok has offices in Los Angeles, London, New York, Paris and Berlin, among others.
