Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Roku
More information about location
4+ days a week in office
Convenient and affordable TV streaming players
Open for applications
Convenient and affordable TV streaming players
1001+ employees
Open for applications
More information about location
4+ days a week in office
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
- We’re seeking an Applied Scientist with a strong foundation in mathematics, machine learning, and computer science, combined with experience in cloud engineering, DevOps, and computer vision — someone who thrives where research meets production
- A Master’s degree (PhD preferred) in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or a related field
- Strong background developing applied machine learning systems using PyTorch or TensorFlow
- Expertise in image processing, computer vision, or natural language processing
- Experience using AWS, GCP, or Azure for storing data, training, and serving models
- Proven ability to evaluate models and communicate insights effectively
- Experience building APIs with frameworks such as GraphQL or REST
- Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow, Argo, AWS Step Functions, or Metaflow
- Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CloudFormation, CI/CD automation, and Python build or packaging tools
What the job involves
- The Advanced Development team at Roku pushes beyond today’s product lines to invent the next generation of intelligent and generative media systems
- We explore ideas that sit years ahead of production, developing foundational technologies that will redefine how content is understood, created, and personalised across millions of Roku devices
- This is a rare environment — a PhD-level, cross-disciplinary group combining machine learning research, software engineering, and DevOps
- Everyone here is an expert, but not narrowly focused. The team blends deep technical mastery with broad creative vision — people who challenge convention, embrace ambiguity, and build what’s never been built before. It’s a collaborative, low-ego, ownership-driven culture built on trust and curiosity
- As a Senior Applied Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll help design, build, and deploy the systems that make media smarter
- You’ll work across the full model and software lifecycle, from prototype to production, developing scalable ML pipelines and cloud architectures that power generative AI, intelligent media understanding, content analysis, and advertising intelligence
- You’ll operate at the intersection of machine learning, infrastructure, and software engineering, taking ownership from data collection through deployment — and seeing your work directly influence how audiences experience Roku’s content and advertising ecosystem
- Deploying scalable, fault-tolerant computer vision, media understanding, and generative AI systems to production
- Overseeing the full model development cycle: ideation, prototyping, implementation, deployment, testing, and operations
- Designing uncertainty metrics and communicating results to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Gathering and compiling datasets, defining annotation ontologies, auditing annotation operations, and ensuring data quality
- Staying up to date with industry and academic trends in computer vision, machine learning, and generative models for media and advertising
- Working closely with product and other engineering teams to implement new content and advertising experiences through cloud services
- Integrating services from other teams around the company, while also providing reusable ML services to others
- Evaluating and providing feedback on new platform technologies provided by internal teams
- Working with QA teams to address bugs and contribute to automation and quality assurance
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 in 2021. After successful collaborations with TCL and Hisense, the first in-house "Roku Television" was released in 2023, further exemplifying the streaming company's wider ambitions in the media sector.
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
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.
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