Senior Software Engineer, Cloud Services

Roku•San Jose, CA

4d•$300,000 - $360,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a highly experienced and skilled Lead Engineer to join our backend and data team. This role is crucial for designing, building, and optimizing distributed data pipelines, real-time data processing systems, and backend solutions that effectively handle large-scale data. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in Java, distributed systems, and big data technologies, and a passion for solving complex problems and delivering robust solutions. We’re always in “build mode” because we’re a company of data-focused builders. Every day, you’ll look at what exists and find ways to make it better and help drive innovation.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience with significant time in technical leadership roles
Proven expertise in building scalable, distributed, and streaming solutions in production environments
Deep experience with content management systems, media processing, or publishing platforms
Expert-level proficiency in Java or Scala required; Python experience is a strong plus
Strong expertise in distributed systems architecture, microservices, and event-driven architectures
Deep understanding of streaming technologies (Kafka, Redpanda, or similar
Advanced knowledge of databases (SQL/NoSQL), vector databases (eg, Milvus), caching strategies, and data modeling at scale
Track record of leading complex technical projects from conception to production in high-scale environments
Excellent communication skills and ability to influence technical decisions across teams and organizations
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) at enterprise scale
Extensive experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes

Nice To Haves

Experience with search technologies (Elasticsearch, Solr, etc) or recommendation systems

Responsibilities

Define architecture and technical strategy, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance at scale
Provide technical guidance, conduct code reviews, and mentor engineers to elevate team capabilities and foster engineering excellence
Design and implement robust distributed systems, streaming solutions, content management systems, APIs, and data pipelines that handle high-volume content operations
Partner with Product, Operations, Business, and other engineering teams to deliver integrated solutions
Remain significantly hands-on with critical features and architectural components
Drive technical planning, prioritization, and execution aligned with business objectives
Act as a key technical partner to the Engineering Manager in driving team success and technical decisions
Champion a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and continuous. improvement; establish engineering best practices
Lead efforts in monitoring, observability, performance optimization, and production reliability at scale