Principal Software Engineer, Roblox
Backend, Communication Platform
$295.3-345k
+ Equity
More information about location
3+ days a week in office (San Mateo, CA)
Online gaming & entertainment platform
Be an early applicant
Online gaming & entertainment platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$295.3-345k
+ Equity
More information about location
3+ days a week in office (San Mateo, CA)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To connect a billion people with optimism and civility.
Role
Who you are
- Experienced: 5+ years of backend or full-stack software engineering, with demonstrated ownership of large-scale production systems
- A distributed systems thinker: Strong fundamentals in designing and operating services under real load and at global scale
- Technically versatile: Proficient in at least one server-side language (C#, Java, Go, C++) and comfortable navigating large, complex codebases
- A clear communicator: You write sharp technical specs, reason carefully about trade-offs, and make decisions that hold up over time
- An end-to-end owner: You drive projects from requirements through production, including cross-functional coordination. You don't hand off and walk away
- Product-opinionated: You proactively shape the roadmap and push for the right outcomes. You don't just execute plans
- Kind and generous: You treat colleagues with respect, assume good intent, and go out of your way to help others succeed
- An AI advocate: You actively push the boundaries of AI-assisted development for yourself and your team
- Continuously growing: You take pride in your craft and hold yourself to a high standard
What the job involves
- As a Principal Software Engineer on the Communications Platform team, you'll set the technical direction for the systems that power how millions of Roblox users connect, express themselves, and communicate — across the app, in-experience, and on every device
- Our platform underlies chat, direct messaging, forums, comments, and more, and it has to be fast, reliable, and safe at global scale. The technologies we operate include real-time socket messaging, streaming pipelines, search infrastructure, rich messaging systems, and the APIs that tie it all together
- You'll define and evolve the architectural foundations that internal teams and our creator community rely on to ship communication features quickly and safely, and you'll shape the long-term vision that makes our platform more capable and Roblox communications more fun and immersive
- Define and drive the technical vision for Communications Platform: identify where the platform needs to evolve, align stakeholders across teams, and translate that direction into executable roadmaps
- Architect the high-throughput, low-latency infrastructure that powers communication for tens of millions of daily users, setting the standards for how systems are designed, built, and operated across the team
- Lead the most complex, cross-cutting technical initiatives: spanning multiple teams, navigating ambiguity, and driving decisions that have long-lasting impact on the platform
- Own the API and platform design philosophy, shaping the primitives, contracts, and extensibility models that internal teams and creators build on, with safety as a first-class constraint
- Identify systemic risks and platform-wide technical debt before they become problems; champion the investments needed to address them
- Be a multiplier across engineering teams: elevate technical quality through design reviews, architecture feedback, and establishing best practices that scale across teams
- Develop senior engineers through mentorship, sponsorship, and creating opportunities for meaningful ownership
- Partner with Engineering leadership, Product, and Design to influence roadmap prioritization and ensure technical strategy is reflected in what the team builds
- Own production reliability at a platform level: set the standard for operational health, drive systemic performance improvements, and ensure the team has the tooling and practices to sustain it
Our take
Online gaming may be a well-established space, but Roblox has distinguished itself as a leader by empowering its community to build, share, and profit from their own creations - turning game development into an accessible, rewarding ecosystem for millions of users.
In addition to standard games, the platform offers virtual worlds and other experiences to explore and interact with. Its platform provides an online ecosystem for millions to create, socialize, chat, and explore immersive experiences with friends. In fact, in the US its used by two-thirds of children aged 9 to 12.
The platform has faced scrutiny over user safety, but responded by strengthen parental controls and launching initiatives like its "Parents Council". This move to address these issues, atop its strong financial performance and record payouts to developers, showcase Roblox's trajectory as one of innovation and impressive growth.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
25% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Jan 2021
$520m
SERIES H
Feb 2020
$150m
SERIES G
Total funding: $922.8m
Company HQ
South San Mateo, San Mateo, CA
Leadership
David Baszucki
(Founder & CEO)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford before founding Knowledge Revolution in 1990, where they spent 9 years as CEO. They worked as VP of MSC.Software for 2 years, and started Roblox in 2005.
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