Principal Software Engineer, CI and CD Foundation

Roblox; California (MO); On-site; USD 345,000 - 399,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Job summary

Roblox is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for the CI/CD Foundation team to transform how Roblox builds, tests, and ships code at massive scale. You will set the long-term technical vision and lead modernization across local and distributed pipelines.

You will champion developer productivity through advanced systems (Submit Queues, Merge Trains) and AI-driven automation, collaborating with cross-functional leads to deliver world-class tooling for C++, Lua, and native platforms.

Qualifications

• 12+ years as Principal/Staff+ engineer in CI/CD infra
• Enterprise-scale build systems experience
• Proficient in C++, Go, Python or Rust
• Knowledge of AWS, Kubernetes, Nomad and Docker
• Experience with AI tooling in software engineering

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year CI/CD strategy for Roblox's build/test/release platforms.
• Modernize inner and outer loops to improve developer velocity.
• Design high-throughput submission queues and merge trains.
• Integrate agentic AI to diagnose failures and auto-remediate flaky tests.
• Collaborate with Engine, Mobile, and Infrastructure teams on tooling.

Skills

CI/CD architecture

Distributed systems

C++

Go/Python/Rust

AI tooling

Observability

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Nomad

Docker

Job description

Every day, tens of millions of people come to Roblox to explore, create, play, learn, and connect with friends in 3D immersive digital experiences– all created by our global community of developers and creators.

At Roblox, we’re building the tools and platform that empower our community to bring any experience that they can imagine to life. Our vision is to reimagine the way people come together, from anywhere in the world, and on any device. We’re on a mission to connect a billion people with optimism and civility, and looking for amazing talent to help us get there.

A career at Roblox means you’ll be working to shape the future of human interaction, solving unique technical challenges at scale, and helping to create safer, more civil shared experiences for everyone.

About the Team

The CI and CD Foundation team is the backbone of our engineering velocity. Our mission is to engineer and deliver a CI/CD ecosystem that streamlines the integration and delivery of our core client code—including the Game Engine, Studio, and User Apps.

We are laser-focused on three goals: enhancing overall build reliability, maximizing developer productivity, and ensuring consistent software quality. We’re building and improving pipelines and tools to transform SDLC in the age of AI-driven software development.

The Role

As a Principal Software Engineer on the CI/CD Foundation team, you will serve as the chief technical strategist and architect responsible for transforming how Roblox builds, tests, and ships code at massive scale.

Our build and delivery ecosystem handles immense complexity: decades of C++ game engine code, extensive Lua applications, complex native platforms, and a sprawling monorepo with massive, growing test suites. You will lead the technical vision to modernize, decouple, and accelerate this ecosystem—driving radical improvements across our Local Dev Inner Loop (pre-commit/pre-push), CI (PR validation, speculative execution, merge queues), and CD (OTA updates and binary releases).

We need a visionary builder who deeply understands developer productivity engineering at scale—someone who can architect advanced systems (like custom Submit Queues or intelligent Merge Trains) and harness modern agentic AI workflows to build an autonomous, lightning-fast developer platform.

You Will:

• Architect CI/CD Strategy: Set and execute the multi-year technical vision for Roblox's build, test, and release platforms. Overhaul legacy pipelines into an automated, observable, and resilient foundation capable of scaling with our rapidly growing engineering org.

• Master the Inner & Outer Loops: Dramatically reduce developer friction by modernizing the local inner loop (fast local feedback, smart caching, pre-commit optimization) and scaling the outer loop (distributed testing, fast artifact promotion, and automated OTA/binary deployments).

• Build Concurrency & Merge Solutions: Solve complex, multi-repo merge and build bottlenecks by architecting high-throughput submission engines (e.g., modern Submit Queue systems) that handle high-velocity code insertion without breaking main branches.

• Pioneer Agentic AI & Automation: Lead the integration of modern agentic AI tools and intelligent automation to autonomously diagnose build failures, optimize test suites, auto-remediate flaky tests, and eliminate repetitive developer chores.

• Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate directly with Client, Engine, Mobile, and Infrastructure leads to understand their specialized stack requirements (C++, Lua, Native Mobile) and translate them into unified, world-class developer tooling.

• Set Technical Excellence: Drive architectural reviews, establish technical standards, and mentor senior and staff engineers across the Developer Platform organization.

Who You Are:

• Domain Mastery (12+ Years): You have a proven track record as a Principal/Staff+ engineer architecting and scaling enterprise-grade CI/CD infrastructure, distributed build systems, and developer platforms at hyper-scale.

• Deep Systems & Infrastructure Knowledge: You understand the mechanics of large-scale builds (C++, Mobile, Monorepos), artifact dependency graphs, distributed caching, container orchestration (AWS, Kubernetes, Nomad, Docker), and observability pipelines.

• Algorithmic & Distributed Systems Problem Solver: You have hands‑on experience (or deep architectural familiarity) with advanced CI concepts like speculative build execution, merge queues/submit queues, distributed test execution, and dynamic build graph generation.

• Strong Polyglot Engineer: Proficient in systems and tooling languages (such as C++, Go, Python, or Rust) with a history of writing high-performance platform tools.

• Pioneer in AI Tooling: You actively leverage and experiment with cutting‑edge AI software engineering tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, agentic workflows) and know how to integrate AI to turn manual dev processes into self‑healing, autonomous platforms.

• Data & Observability Driven: You rely on build telemetry, pipeline tracing and developer friction metrics to pinpoint bottlenecks and quantify developer velocity gains.

For roles that are based at our headquarters in San Mateo, CA: The starting base pay for this position is as shown below. The actual base pay is dependent upon a variety of job-related factors such as professional background, training, work experience, location, business needs and market demand. Therefore, in some circumstances, the actual salary could fall outside of this expected range. This pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. All full-time employees are also eligible for equity compensation and for benefits as described on this page.

Annual Salary Range

$345,040—$399,420 USD

Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).

Roblox provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Roblox also provides reasonable accommodations to candidates with qualifying disabilities or religious beliefs during the recruiting process.

For US based roles only, please note the Company may not be able to employ candidates for this role who have United States work authorization related to certain U.S. visa categories, or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.