Senior Software Engineer, Search & Recommendations Platform

Roku•San Jose, CA

7h•$286,000 - $320,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Roku’s Search & Recommendations (S&R) Platform Engineering team is central to our mission of delivering outstanding streaming experiences to millions of people worldwide. We develop and maintain the core platform that powers search, personalization, and content discovery at scale across every Roku device and service. We are a technically diverse and collaborative team that values ownership, transparency, and a culture of continuous improvement. We work closely with colleagues across platforms and infrastructure teams to deliver high-performance distributed systems and observability capabilities that enable real-time search, ranking, and recommendations. Our work includes designing and optimizing online inference infrastructure, feature stores, and data pipelines — all seamlessly integrated with the broader platform ecosystem (Kubernetes, Istio, Envoy). We’re passionate about solving complex technical challenges that directly impact how users experience Roku. We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer with experience in building scalable, reliable systems to help evolve and extend the infrastructure behind our Search and Recommendations platform. In this role, you’ll be part of a cross-functional, globally distributed team dedicated to creating fast, cost-efficient solutions that deliver relevant and seamless user experiences. You’ll contribute to the design, development, and operation of critical systems that power real-time search and personalized recommendations for millions of users. You’ll help shape the roadmap for our next-generation architecture, drive standardization and tooling efforts, and champion best practices in observability and resilience. We are a fast-moving team with a strong engineering culture built on clear communication, thoughtful decision-making, and a shared commitment to delivering impactful solutions. Collaboration is fundamental to how we work — we invest as much in supporting our growth as we do in building exceptional systems.

Requirements

8+ years of professional experience building large-scale distributed systems
Proficiency in modern backend languages (Java, Python, Go) and scalable cloud-native architectures (AWS, Kubernetes, service meshes, etc.)
Deep knowledge of DevOps practices, SRE principles, infrastructure-as-code, and real-time data processing
Experience collaborating with engineers and product stakeholders to shape features and systems
A platform mindset: you design with reuse, observability, and scale in mind, supporting not only your team but the broader engineering organization
A track record of improving performance, cost efficiency, and maintainability in complex environments
Expertise in deploying and operating observability and tracing tools such as OpenTelemetry, Grafana Tempo, Thanos, Loki, and Prometheus at scale

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate platform infrastructure powering real-time search and personalized recommendations
Work closely with machine learning engineers, data scientists, and infrastructure teams to scale our Machine Learning Platform
Shape the roadmap for our next-generation architecture, including improvements in cost efficiency, observability, and resilience
Drive tooling and standardization, working with the broader platform teams to identify and align on shared approaches
Design and implement multi-tenant systems and APIs that accelerate development, reduce coupling, and serve multiple teams across Roku
Take ownership of quality and system performance from design through deployment and operation in production

Benefits

health insurance
equity awards
life insurance
disability benefits
parental leave
wellness benefits
paid time off
global access to mental health and financial wellness support and resources
Local benefits include statutory and voluntary benefits which may include healthcare (medical, dental, and vision), life, accident, disability, commuter, and retirement options (401(k)/pension).
Our employees can take time off work for vacation and other personal reasons to balance their evolving work and life needs.