Senior Software Engineer - Data Acquisition (PhD Early Career)

About the role

Roblox's Data Intake team owns the tooling that sources and processes the training data behind its foundation models. As a founding team member on this new service, you will help obtain diverse datasets from many external sources, process them into consistent formats and store them reliably and accessibly for the models. The role suits someone who enjoys building and iterating quickly on internal products and who wants to help define the technical direction of the product area.

Key responsibilities

• Help architect and deliver a high-performance analytics environment serving thousands of queries daily
• Design and scale data infrastructure for data retrieval and visualization
• Ensure data systems are reliable, observable, privacy-compliant and performant
• Bridge data engineering, analytics and infrastructure to deliver a suite of well-featured, easy-to-use data tools
• Build intelligent agentic automation to simplify and accelerate analytical workflows
• Contribute to internal platforms and tools that improve developer productivity
• Self-organize and take ownership of projects through their full lifecycle

Required profile

• Possessing or pursuing a PhD in computer science, engineering or a related field, with a thesis aligned to Roblox's research areas
• Experience in developing production solutions is a plus
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills and passion for building systems that accelerate team productivity

Required skills

• Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as SQL, Python or R
• Proficiency in big data query and processing tools such as SQL, Hive, Spark or Airflow

What we offer

• Annual salary range of $196,750-$243,290 USD for San Mateo-based roles, depending on background, experience and market conditions
• Equity compensation and benefits for full-time employees
• Onsite presence Tuesday to Thursday, with optional presence Monday and Friday