Lead Software Engineer, Payment Platform

Roku; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 400,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Equity awards

Life insurance

Disability benefits

Parental leave

Wellness benefits

Paid time off

Job summary

Roku Pay is seeking a Lead Engineer to drive architectural excellence and hands-on implementation for a scalable payments platform. You will lead evaluation of new technologies, influence the roadmap, and own key initiatives, while mentoring teams and maintaining high code quality.

You will work across product and engineering, shaping platform layers, and advocating best practices in development, QA, and ops. This role emphasizes deep technical leadership with hands-on coding.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted and agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) and ability to delegate, review, and integrate AI-generated code into production.
• 15+ years of experience in large-scale backend services, specifically within payment system architecture and implementation.
• Strong architectural design experience for highly available and scalable payment platforms.
• Experience with multi-cloud solutions and guiding design, deployment, and scaling across clouds.
• Strong expertise in payments and billing systems and in building CI/CD pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Use agentic AI coding tools as part of daily workflow, delegating tasks to AI, reviewing and refining AI-generated code, and integrating it into production.
• Build and ship features using AI coding agents, delegating implementation, reviewing output, and owning quality.
• Own the building of platform features, driving work with product and other engineering teams.
• Own design and implementation of shared architectural layers and libraries across teams.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and lead adoption of new designs addressing platform challenges.
• Participate in architectural discussions, influence the technical roadmap, and own key initiatives.
• Review technical specification documents and mentor team members to raise quality.
• Stay hands-on with code and design reviews, spending ~70% of time writing code.
• Champion best practices and a culture of innovation and reuse across development, QA, and infrastructure/ops.

Skills

Agentic coding tools

Backend payments experience

Architectural design

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

AI collaboration & review

CI/CD pipelines

Tools

AWS

GCP

CI/CD tooling

Job description

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. Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. Our mission is to be the TV streaming platform that connects the entire TV ecosystem. 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.

From your first day at Roku, you'll make a valuable - and valued - contribution. We're a fast-growing public company where no one is a bystander. We offer you the opportunity to delight millions of TV streamers around the world while gaining meaningful experience across a variety of disciplines.

About the team

Roku Pay is one of Roku's core monetization streams and is well-positioned for significant growth. Roku Pay encompasses the Pricing, Billing, and Payments ecosystems, along with many other integrations that strive to deliver a great experience for our partners and consumers. We are rebuilding our platform to support our growth plans in both domestic and international markets. As part of this exercise, you will have an opportunity to build out a very scalable, performant, and available system that can influence Roku's growth path tremendously, while being on the bleeding edge of technologies, crafting microservices, scaling cloud deployments, etc.

For California Only - The estimated annual salary for this position is between $400,000 - $500,000 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.

About the role

As Lead Engineer, you'll lead the evaluation and implementation of new technologies and designs, continually assessing emerging tools and seeking innovative solutions to both existing and new challenges. You'll engage in architectural discussions across multiple teams, influence the roadmap, and own key projects and initiatives, providing the technical leadership and expertise needed to drive highly available, scalable platform capabilities.

This role sets the standard for engineering excellence—establishing clear expectations and leading by hands‑on example. You'll be an evangelist for best practices across every function, including development, QA, and infrastructure/ops, as well as a champion for platform innovation and reuse. While you'll stay actively involved in code and design reviews, this remains a deeply technical position: you're expected to be heavily hands‑on with agentic coding.

What you’ll be doing

• Use agentic AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) as part of your daily workflow, delegating tasks to AI, reviewing and refining AI-generated code, and integrating it into production
• Build and ship features using AI coding agents—delegating implementation, reviewing output, and owning the quality of what makes it to production
• Own the building of platform features, driving work directly with product and other engineering teams
• Own the design and implementation of shared architectural layers (e.g., queuing, event systems, shared memory clusters) and libraries that can be leveraged across teams.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and lead the adoption of new designs that address platform challenges
• Participate in architectural discussions across teams, influence the technical roadmap, and take ownership of key initiatives
• Review technical specification documents produced by the development team and mentor team members to raise the bar on quality
• Stay hands‑on with code and design reviews while spending the majority of your time (~70%) writing code
• Champion best practices and a culture of innovation and reuse across development, QA, and infrastructure/ops

We’re excited if you have

• Hands‑on experience with AI‑assisted and agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) is required, including the ability to effectively delegate, review, and integrate AI-generated code within a production workflow
• 15+ years of experience in large-scale backend services, specifically within payment system architecture and implementation, or related professional industry experience
• A good understanding of various payment flows is required, such as payment processing, card tokenization, payment gateway integration, token vault management, etc.
• Good understanding of different payment processing flows, such as sync vs async, and online vs offline
• Familiar with different compliance standards, such as SOX, PCI, 3DS, etc.
• Experience with the RFP (Request for Proposal) Process, proven ability to translate business needs to vendor requirements, performance of deep technical evaluation on 3rd parties vendors, and helping business selecting the right vendor to scale with the company
• Strong architectural design experience, and a great track record of building a highly available and scalable payment platform
• Experience with multi‑cloud solutions is a plus; ability to offer technical guidance to design, deploy, and scale applications across multiple cloud environments
• Strong expertise with cloud solutions/systems across the cloud with AWS or GCP is a must
• Strong experience in designing and leading highly complex transactional systems
• Strong passion for technology and adding value to the bottom line through technology
• Strong expertise in Payments and billing systems is required
• Strong passion & expertise in building and adopting CI/CD pipelines

What’s Roku’s approach to hybrid working?

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.

What are some of the 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].

What should I know 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.

To learn more about Roku, our global footprint, and how we've grown, visit https://www.weareroku.com/factsheet.

By providing your information, you acknowledge that you want Roku to contact you about job roles, that you have read Roku's Applicant Privacy Notice, and understand that Roku will use your information as described in that notice. If you do not wish to receive any communications from Roku regarding this role or similar roles in the future, you may unsubscribe at any time by emailing [e-mail].