Senior Director of Software Engineering, Roku
$650-750k
+ Equity
Office located in San Jose, CA
Convenient & affordable TV streaming players
Be an early applicant
Convenient & affordable TV streaming players
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$650-750k
+ Equity
Office located in San Jose, CA
1001+ employees
Company mission
To provide its users with a more convenient and cost effective way of watching the programs they love.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate is a builder-architect and a transformation leader
- You have deep, current expertise in AI and software architecture and a clear point of view on where software is heading, and you have repeatedly reshaped teams and lifted engineering standards to meet that direction
- You care as much about how work gets done — the architecture, the rigor, the ways of working — as about what gets shipped
- 15+ years building and leading software engineering teams, including significant experience leading managers and/or senior engineers in an organization of scale
- Deep, current expertise in cloud architecture and software engineering, with the judgment to set architectural direction and go as deep as a problem requires — whether as a hands-on architect or leading through strong managers
- Personal, current fluency with the agentic engineering toolchain — conversational AI and agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) used across the full software development lifecycle — with the judgment to drive an agent, verify its output, and lead by example. Depth in LLM-based applications, agentic workflows, MCP integration, and eval-driven development
- A track record of raising engineering standards in an existing organization — modernizing architecture, embedding secure-by-design practices, and improving quality, rigor, and agility
- Conviction and experience in organizational design, including reshaping teams around outcomes and evolving operating models
- Experience with enterprise or internal platforms and the governance, security, and compliance that come with them; large-scale enterprise system modernization is a strong plus
- Change leadership: a demonstrated ability to move an organization to new, AI-enabled ways of working and to protect strategic capacity against the gravity of run-the-business work
- Exceptional executive presence, a data-driven mindset, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders
What the job involves
- Roku is seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead the organization that builds the custom applications, integrations, enterprise data, AI and agentic capabilities, and productivity platforms that power how the company runs
- This is a senior leadership role: you’ll set the technical vision, shape our architecture for an AI-native future, and make Enterprise Engineering’s systems agent-ready — all while championing engineering excellence in quality, security, and speed
- Reporting to the VP of Enterprise Engineering, you will lead a global organization across teams in the US, UK, and India
- You’ll own the software engineering organization building Roku’s custom enterprise applications, integrations, and enterprise data; Productivity Engineering, the platforms and workflows that shape how thousands of employees work each day; and enterprise AI enablement — the AI-enabled capabilities that let our systems and our people operate with far greater leverage
- Set the technical vision and standards for the software engineering organization that builds Roku’s custom enterprise applications, integrations, and enterprise data
- Advance our architecture and engineering practices — driving cloud-native design, strong engineering and security discipline, and fast, reliable delivery
- Drive our enterprise AI enablement strategy — building the reusable foundations for agent-ready systems (identity-aware MCP services, reusable skills, eval practices, and a governed context layer) and enabling teams across the organization to build, adopt, and operate AI capabilities themselves
- Lead the organization’s shift to AI-first engineering: drive team-wide AI adoption, create the psychological safety for teams to experiment and learn, redesign workflows around AI rather than bolting it on, and establish standards for the quality and accountability of AI-assisted work
- Reshape team topology around outcomes as the boundaries between engineering disciplines blur, evolving the org toward versatile, product-aligned teams
- Build, coach, and uplift a high-performing, geographically distributed engineering team, and serve as a thought partner to executive leadership
- Own Productivity Engineering: the platforms, workflows, and tools that shape how thousands of employees collaborate, execute, and make decisions
- Partner on the architecture and execution of major enterprise tentpole initiatives that span multiple systems and teams
- Operate with the governance, security, audit, and compliance discipline (including SOX) that enterprise systems require
Our take
According to Nielsen data, the average streamer spends over seven minutes searching for something to watch. Streaming services use customers' viewing history to make suggestions, but these are limited to programs licensed for that particular service.
Roku provides an integrated streaming service that offers TV channels, movies and third-party streaming services, resulting in an all-in-one streaming platform. The service can be accessed through a variety of customized subscription packages and fees.
Roku stands out in the streaming industry by bringing many competitors together in one package. The startup provides further innovative services such as a weekly TV series named 'Roku Recommends' which uses first-party data to recommend essential viewing to users.
Alongside funding filmmakers through its "Change Makers Program", Roku also acquired its own original library of shows through its acquisition of now-defunct Quibi's library. Then, after successful collaborations with TCL and Hisense, the first in-house "Roku Television" was released. In 2026, it was announced that media giant FOX would acquire Roku, which the companies say will create the third largest player in US TV by share of viewing.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-6% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Jan 2016
$45.5m
LATE VC
Nov 2015
$45.5m
SERIES H
Total funding: $247.8m
Company benefits
- Medical, wellness and financial benefits
- Unlimited paid time off policy
- Work from home opportunities
- Free snacks and access to the company fitness center
Company HQ
Newhall, San Jose, CA
Leadership
Anthony Wood
(Founder & CEO)Studied Engineering at Texas A&M before founding their first company in 1986. They held VP roles at both Adobe and Netflix.
Salary benchmarks
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