Senior Software Engineer, Backend

We are seeking a seasoned Senior Backend Engineer to join the Roku APPS team and help shape our large-scale, consumer-facing platform. In this role, you will design, build, and operate highly available and scalable distributed services used by millions of devices worldwide. You will collaborate closely with Product and Design teams to drive features from concept to production, mentor engineers, and influence architectural decisions across the platform.

This role is ideal for a self-starter who thrives on solving complex problems at scale, has a strong operational mindset, and enjoys balancing hands-on engineering with strategic impact. You will have the opportunity to work on challenging distributed systems, help adopt best practices, and ensure our platform remains reliable, performant, and innovative.

The Roku APPS team is a group of highly skilled technologists building innovative platform products and services that power the Roku ecosystem for over 100M+ users and streaming devices. We focus on critical device services - including setup, configuration, software updates, and smart home integration that ensure seamless experiences across millions of devices.

As part of Roku's broader mission to lead the streaming industry, our team drives the architecture and implementation of scalable, reliable services that support the Roku platform and enhance the way users discover and interact with content. We thrive on solving complex technical challenges, delivering high-impact features, and shaping the future of connected entertainment.

For California Only - The estimated annual base salary for this position is between $380,000 - $450,000 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.

At Roku, we don't just use AI, we work with it. AI agents and smart tools help power drafts, analysis, and repetitive workflows, while our people bring direction, judgment, and accountability. We're looking for curious, adaptable builders who can show how they've used AI or automation to move faster, raise the bar, and scale their impact.

We value your AI skills if you have built fluency across the agentic engineering toolchain - coding harnesses like Claude Code or Cursor, MCP servers, custom skills, or agent frameworks. And you can describe projects where you shipped real work with these tools. You know how to drive an agent, verify its output, and ramp on an unfamiliar codebase with an agent helping you.

- Build and own large-scale platform services used internally and by millions of devices.

- Lead architectural discussions and design highly available, scalable, distributed systems.

- Partner with Product and Design to deliver features from ideation through production and ongoing support.

- Manage technical scope, priorities, and delivery timelines.

- Champion engineering excellence through hands-on development (70%), code/design reviews, and mentorship.

- Evaluate emerging technologies and drive adoption of best practices across engineering, QA, and operations.

- 8+ years of experience designing, building, and operating large-scale backend and distributed systems.

- Expertise in building large-scale cloud services in AWS and/or Google Cloud.

- Deep understanding of infrastructure fundamentals (networking, compute, storage, containers) with hands-on experience troubleshooting Kubernetes clusters and distributed systems in production.

- Experience selecting appropriate data stores and analyzing performance, scalability, and consistency trade-offs.

- Track record of monitoring deployments and diagnosing production issues.

- Strong understanding of end-to-end web architecture, from client devices to backend services.