Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Ad Serving

Teamwork makes the stream work. Roku is changing how the world watches TV. Roku is the #1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and we've set our sights on powering every television in the world. We connect consumers to the content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers unique capabilities to engage consumers.

About the Team

A highly scalable and highly available real-time advertising platform is crucial for supporting and growing Roku's advertising business. The mission of the Ad Engineering Team is to build this platform. The Ad Serving team designs, builds, deploys, and operates Roku’s Supply-Side, Ad Mediation, and Demand-Side platforms, which sit at the core of Roku’s ad monetization and are critical to the business.

About the Role

This role will drive improvements in Roku Exchange efficiency by applying advanced data analytics and machine learning techniques to optimize pricing, allocation, and auction across the marketplace.

For New York only: The estimated annual salary for this position is between $195,000 - $510,000 annually. Compensation packages are based on factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, certifications, and specific geographical location. This role is eligible for health insurance, equity awards, life insurance, disability benefits, parental leave, wellness benefits, and paid time off.

How will I use AI at Roku?

At Roku, we don’t just use AI, we work with it. AI agents and smart tools help power drafts, analysis, and repetitive workflows, while our people bring direction, judgment, and accountability. We’re looking for curious, adaptable builders who can show how they’ve used AI or automation to move faster, raise the bar, and scale their impact. We value your AI skills if you have built fluency across the agentic engineering toolchain — coding harnesses like Claude Code or Cursor, MCP servers, custom skills, or agent frameworks. You can describe projects where you shipped real work with these tools. You know how to drive an agent, verify its output, and ramp on an unfamiliar codebase with an agent helping you.

Responsibilities

• Translate ambiguous business problems into clear hypotheses, measurable objectives, and actionable strategies
• Develop advanced ML models and research-driven methodologies to drive product innovation and improve business outcomes
• Design and run live experiments to prototype improvements and validate their effectiveness
• Build production-grade ML systems that operate reliably in large-scale, low-latency ad serving environments
• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to define, plan, and drive the ML strategy for Ad Serving
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship in machine learning, experimentation frameworks, and applied research best practices

Requirements

• 10+ years of industry experience applying machine learning and data science to solve complex, mission-critical real-world problems
• Deep expertise in statistics, machine learning, and optimization techniques
• Perform as a staff+ technologist on complex, revenue-critical, large-scale distributed ML systems
• Hands-on experience building and deploying ML models in production, including feature engineering, model serving, monitoring, and continuous improvement
• Solid software engineering skills in languages such as Python, SQL, and Java/Scala
• Strong CS fundamentals with the ability to translate ideas into clean, efficient code with ease
• Excellent written and verbal communication and collaboration skills
• Proven track record of leading cross-functional teams and initiatives
• Publications in leading peer-reviewed conferences or academic journals are a plus
• Expertise in advertising is a plus

Schedule

Roku fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment where teams generally work in the office Monday through Thursday. Fridays are generally flexible for remote work, except for employees whose specific roles or assigned office location require five days' a week attendance.

Benefits

Roku is committed to offering a diverse range of benefits as part of our compensation package to support our employees and their families. Our comprehensive benefits include:

• Global access to mental health and financial wellness support and resources
• Local benefits including healthcare (medical, dental, and vision), life, accident, disability, commuter, and retirement options (401(k)/pension)
• Support for taking time off in accordance with local leave policies and personal needs

It's important to note that not every benefit is available in all locations or for every role.

About Roku's Culture

Roku is a great place for people who want to work in a fast-paced environment where everyone is focused on the company's success rather than their own. We try to surround ourselves with people who are great at their jobs, who are easy to work with, and who keep their egos in check. We appreciate a sense of humor. We believe a fewer number of very talented folks can do more for less cost than a larger number of less talented teams. We're independent thinkers with big ideas who act boldly, move fast and accomplish extraordinary things through collaboration and trust. In short, at Roku you'll be part of a company that's changing how the world watches TV.

We have a unique culture that we are proud of. We think of ourselves primarily as problem-solvers, which itself is a two-part idea. We come up with the solution, but the solution isn't real until it is built and delivered to the customer. That penchant for action gives us a pragmatic approach to innovation, one that has served us well since 2002.