Senior Machine Learning Engineering Manager, Text Safety

Roblox; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 345,000 - 399,000; Full time

Job summary

Roblox is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager for Safety AI Systems to lead ML efforts, manage a team of engineers, and shape the architecture of language-safety models at scale. You will partner with product, policy, data science, design, and operations to deliver safe, scalable capabilities for a global community.

You will oversee model development, data quality, training pipelines, and production readiness while guiding strategic roadmaps and fostering a culture of innovation and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building large-scale ML systems in production.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience with language models or foundation models.
• Experience collaborating across Product, Data Science, Policy, Design, and Operations.
• Strong ability to drive technical decisions and maintain quality at scale.

Responsibilities

• Own the roadmap and execution of ML solutions for the Language Safety AI system.
• Lead and grow a high-performing ML engineering team, mentoring talent.
• Break down long-term goals into actionable roadmaps with iterative delivery.
• Architect and guide development of large-scale language models for production.
• Drive alignment across teams and stakeholders on complex decisions.
• Collaborate with Product, Data Science, Policy, Design, and Operations to prioritize the ML roadmap.
• Stay ahead of AI/ML trends and innovator techniques in safety.

Skills

Large-scale ML systems

Production ML

Language models

ML leadership

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.

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.

Why Safety AI Systems?

As Senior Engineering Manager for Safety AI Systems at Roblox, you'll lead technical efforts and manage a team of experienced engineers to develop innovative AI solutions for language and text content safety. You'll oversee machine learning systems, data quality, training pipelines, and model performance to address challenges like real-time content understanding across Roblox's experiences and advanced moderation with large language models, spanning chat, comments, usernames, game descriptions and other generative text content.

In close collaboration with product, policy, and Trust & Safety teams, you'll design large-scale systems to detect and mitigate abusive behavior before it harms the community. You'll own critical services at massive scale, balancing user freedom with platform civility to protect and empower our users. Your leadership will help ensure Roblox remains a safe, inclusive space for self-expression and shared experiences.

You Will

• Own the roadmap and execution of machine learning solutions for the Language Safety AI system, ensuring these systems effectively detect and prevent harmful content at scale.
• Lead and grow a high-performing team of ML engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, technical excellence, accountability, and inclusivity, while mentoring and developing talent.
• Break down ambitious long-term goals into an actionable, iterative roadmap – delivering continuous improvements in stages and driving tangible value at each step.
• Architect and guide the development of large-scale language models with innovative architectures, ensuring they achieve high quality and are production-ready.
• Drive alignment on complex technical decisions across multiple teams (within and beyond the Safety org), demonstrating empathy and building consensus among diverse stakeholders.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Data Science, Policy, Design, and Operations partners to define and prioritize the machine learning roadmap for language safety initiatives, ensuring alignment with broader Safety and Roblox objectives.
• Stay ahead of emerging trends in AI/ML and content moderation techniques, continuously innovating our safety approaches to anticipate new challenges.

You Have

• 5+ years of experience building large-scale machine learning systems in production environments.
• Proven track record of designing, developing, and launching ML models from scratch into production.
• 2+ years of hands‑on experience with language models or other foundation model technologies, and bonus to have experiences on one or more of the following areas:
• LLM eval
• LLM post‑training
• Agentic workflow in prod environment
• Trust & Safety
• Expertise in solving complex ML modeling, data, and infrastructure challenges – with a focus on maintaining high quality and velocity at scale.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity: you excel at bringing clarity and direction to undefined or open‑ended problem spaces.
• Demonstrated success collaborating across functions (e.g. Product, Design, Data, Research), working together to drive meaningful business and user impact.
• Strong product sense: able to establish clear success metrics and craft strategic roadmaps to achieve those goals.
• High emotional intelligence: adept at resolving conflicts, mentoring engineers, and nurturing the growth of your team members.
• Experience with modern microservice architectures and distributed systems programming paradigms (e.g. cloud services, scalable data pipelines).
• Hands‑on to dive into code/architecture and guide technical discussions when needed, in addition to high‑level planning.

You Are

• Creative and strategic problem-solver: able to distill complex issues into simple, innovative solutions that drive impact.
• An owner: you take responsibility for projects and outcomes end‑to‑end, and instill the same accountability in your team.
• A lifelong learner: constantly seeking new knowledge and techniques to grow your expertise and expand your impact.
• Independent and self‑directed: capable of charting a course with minimal guidance, and comfortable making decisions in uncertain situations.
• Highly collaborative: effective at working with cross‑functional partners and teams, and skilled at building consensus.
• Committed to diversity & inclusion: dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels valued, supported, and able to contribute.
• Passionate about cutting‑edge ML tech: knowledgeable about the latest advances in AI/ML and excited to apply these technologies to keep users safe.

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.