Senior Machine Learning Engineer - AdTech

Roku; Salford; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Mental health support

Healthcare benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

Roku in Salford is seeking experienced engineers for a machine learning engineering role focused on building cutting-edge advertising technology. The Ad Performance team aims to improve ad experiences through innovative infrastructure and data analysis.

Responsibilities include developing ML platforms and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Candidates should have a strong background in machine learning and software development, with familiarity in tools like Spark and TensorFlow.

Roku offers a hybrid work approach and a comprehensive benefits package, supporting flexible work arrangements and diverse health resources.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated production experience in applied machine learning.
• Great coding skills and strong software development experience.
• Ability to work with large scale computing frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Help build a first-class machine learning platform.
• Identify and generate features for use cases.
• Develop and evaluate algorithms for improving performance.

Skills

Machine learning

Data analysis

Statistical modeling

Software development

Collaboration

Education

Bachelors, Masters, or PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Spark

Python

Java

TensorFlow

Job description

About the Team

Roku is the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with 70+ million active accounts. Roku pioneered streaming to the TV and continues to innovate and lead the industry. We believe Roku’s continued success relies on its investment in our machine learning recommendation engine. Roku enables our users to access millions of content titles including movies, episodes, news, sports, music, and channels from all around the world.

About the Role

We’re on a mission to build cutting‑edge advertising technology that empowers businesses to run sustainable and highly profitable campaigns. The Ad Performance team owns server technologies, data, and cloud services aimed at improving the ad experience. We're looking for experienced engineers with a background in machine learning to aid in this mission. Examples of problems include improving ad relevance, inferring demographics, yield optimization, and many more. Employees in this role are expected to apply knowledge of experimental methodologies, statistics, optimization, probability theory, and machine learning using both general‑purpose software and statistical languages.

What You’ll Be Doing

• ML infrastructure: Help build a first‑class machine learning platform from the ground up which manages the entire model lifecycle – feature engineering, model training, versioning, deployment, online serving/evaluation, and monitoring prediction quality
• Data analysis and feature engineering: Apply your expertise to identify and generate features that can be leveraged by multiple use cases and models
• Model training with batch and real‑time prediction scenarios: Use machine learning and statistical modeling techniques such as Decision Trees, Logistic Regression, Neural Networks, Bayesian Analysis and others to develop and evaluate algorithms for improving product/system performance, quality, and accuracy
• Production operations: Low‑level systems debugging, performance measurement, and optimization on large production clusters
• Collaboration with cross‑functional teams: Partner with product managers, data scientists, and other engineers to deliver impactful solutions
• Staying ahead of the curve: Continuously learn and adapt to emerging technologies and industry trends

We’re Excited If You Have

• Bachelors, Masters, or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field
• Demonstrated production experience in applied machine learning, with PhD‑level research and implementation experience considered a strong accelerator
• Great coding skills and strong software development experience (we use Spark, Python, Java)
• Familiarity with real‑time evaluation of models with low latency constraints
• Familiarity with distributed ML frameworks such as Spark‑MLlib, TensorFlow, etc
• Ability to work with large scale computing frameworks, data analysis systems, and modeling environments. Examples include Spark, Hive, NoSQL stores such as Aerospike and ScyllaDB
• Ad tech background is a plus

Our Hybrid Work Approach

Roku fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment where teams work in the office Monday through Thursday. Fridays are flexible for remote work except for employees whose roles are required to be in the office five days a week or employees who are in offices with a five day in‑office policy.

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 include statutory and voluntary benefits which may include healthcare (medical, dental, and vision), life, accident, disability, commuter, and retirement options (401(k)/pension). Employees are supported in taking time off, in accordance with local leave policies and other personal needs to support their evolving work and life needs. It’s important to note that not every benefit is available in all locations or for every role. For details specific to your location, please consult with your recruiter.

Accommodations

Roku welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and provides reasonable accommodations and adjustments in accordance with applicable law. If you require reasonable accommodation at any point in the hiring process, please direct your inquiries to [e-mail].