Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Roku
Search
$361.3-510k
+ Equity
More information about location
4-5 days a week in office (San Jose, CA)
Convenient and affordable TV streaming players
Open for applications
Convenient and affordable TV streaming players
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$361.3-510k
+ Equity
More information about location
4-5 days a week in office (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
- 8+ years of industry experience (or PhD with 5+ years) applying ML at scale in search, recommendation, ads, personalization, or related domains
- Strong expertise in ranking systems, recommendation systems, retrieval, personalization, and multi-objective optimization
- Experience building large-scale ML systems leveraging deep learning, sequence models, LLMs, reinforcement learning, or bandit frameworks
- Strong product intuition and experience optimizing user engagement, retention, and monetization simultaneously
- Proficiency in Python, Java, or Scala
- Experience with distributed systems and ML infrastructure such as Spark, Airflow, streaming systems, feature stores, and cloud platforms
- Strong technical leadership, system design, communication, and problem-solving skills
- MS or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field
What the job involves
- Roku’s Entertainment Assistant team is building the next generation of AI-powered discovery experiences across the platform through text, voice, and conversational interactions. The team owns the end-to-end discovery stack, including language understanding, GenAI-powered experiences, retrieval systems, ML-driven ranking and personalization, and whole-page optimization
- We focus on delivering highly personalized and context-aware entertainment experiences while balancing user engagement, long-term retention, and monetization across Roku surfaces. Our systems leverage modern ML and GenAI techniques, including LLMs, reinforcement learning, multi-objective optimization, and agentic workflows, to help millions of users effortlessly discover content they love
- We are looking for a Senior Machine Learning Tech Lead to drive ranking and personalization for Roku’s next-generation entertainment assistant across the platform
- This role sits at the intersection of Search, Recommendations, Conversational Discovery, and Monetization, with the goal of delivering highly engaging, personalized, and context-aware entertainment experiences
- You will lead the development of large-scale ML systems that optimize for multiple objectives including user engagement, long-term retention, satisfaction, and monetization
- The role requires strong technical leadership, product intuition, and the ability to balance user experience with business impact across diverse discovery surfaces
- Lead the technical vision and roadmap for ranking, personalization, and recommendation systems powering Roku’s entertainment assistant
- Develop and deploy state-of-the-art ML models using deep learning, transformers, LLMs, bandits, reinforcement learning, and causal inference techniques
- Build multi-objective optimization systems balancing engagement, retention, relevance, and monetization goals
- Drive innovation in conversational discovery, contextual recommendations, and personalized content experiences across the platform
- Design, run, and analyze online A/B experiments tied to key product and business KPIs
- Architect scalable ML systems, feature platforms, and data pipelines supporting rapid experimentation and long-term growth
- Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across cross-functional initiatives involving engineering, product, UX, and analytics teams
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
- 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.
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