Distinguished Engineer, Machine Learning - Discovery

Overview

Distinguished Engineer/Technical Director on Discovery, responsible for the overall technical vision and execution for all machine learning initiatives across search and discovery teams.

What you'll do

• Own the technical direction and implementation for the machine learning solutions that power the search and recommendation systems, driving Roblox content distribution.
• Author specs for new features and improvements.
• Set the AI strategy, push the frontier of recommendation technology, and drive business outcomes across candidate generation, ranking, objective functions, and value delivery for both users and developers.
• Build and evolve infrastructure for training, serving, and evaluating both traditional ML models and Generative AI models (e.g., embedding-based retrieval, transformers, LLM-based workflows).
• Co-design models and systems at the intersection of model architecture and infrastructure, partnering with core modelers, data and AI infrastructure engineers, and product teams.
• Lead other engineers by example and through technical direction as an individual contributor and create an engineering culture of excellence.
• Become an authority on the technology stack and make sure new solutions are built the right way.
• Collaborate with other Roblox teams to build products with a community and company first attitude.
• Balance researching new technologies with a practical approach to realizing research efforts in Roblox products.
• Collaborate with the industry and communities where applicable and be an ambassador for Roblox.

What you'll need

• 10+ years of experience and a consistent record of delivering and improving large-scale search and recommendation systems.
• Experience crafting and building large scale machine learning models with billions of parameters and launching them into production.
• The capability of breaking down long-term product requirements into iterative deliverable stages.
• Initiated and facilitated challenging technical decisions across multiple teams and organizations.
• Empathetic, finds common understanding, and starts with the needs of the user, whether Roblox users or internal engineers.
• Deep technical expertise and a generalist approach, having mastered several languages and technologies and adapting easily to any situation.
• Ability to roll up your sleeves to tackle data problems or machine learning problems when they come up.
• A creative and strategic approach to solving hard problems, simplifying the complex, and bringing in fresh ideas from new places.
• BS in Computer Science or a related discipline.

Nice to have

• MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related discipline.

Details

• Location: San Mateo, CA, United States (headquarters).
• Onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).
• Annual base salary range $419,390 to $457,970 USD; actual pay depends on factors such as professional background, training, work experience, location, business needs and market demand.
• Full-time employees are also eligible for equity compensation and benefits.
• For US based roles only: the Company may not be able to employ candidates who have United States work authorization related to certain U.S. visa categories, or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.