Senior Manager - Machine Learning

What does the team work on?

Roku's Search & Recommendations (S&R) organization owns the company's core content discovery platform. This is the platform that helps viewers find something to watch across Roku Search, Browse, The Roku Channel, Live TV, sports, and partner experiences. It sits at the intersection of consumer experience, machine learning, distributed systems, content metadata, and business impact.

The Search team's mission is to deliver the best TV search experience: fast, comprehensive, and reliably relevant. That means understanding typed, on-screen keyboard, and voice queries; retrieving the right content across a massive catalog; ranking results intelligently; and continuously improving discovery quality through experimentation and measurement. Done well, this work directly improves key Roku outcomes such as streaming hours, user engagement, and monetization.

What is the role?

As a Senior Manager at Roku Search, you will lead a team of talented engineers and ML scientists to build and improve the search that powers Roku. You will work closely with product managers, designers, and content partners to understand the user needs and business goals and translate them into technical requirements and solutions. You will also collaborate with other engineering teams to ensure the search is scalable, reliable, and efficient.

This is a unique opportunity to work on a high-impact and high-visibility product that reaches millions of users every day. You will have the chance to apply your expertise in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Information Retrieval to solve challenging problems and deliver a delightful search experience to Roku users.

How will I use AI at Roku?

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 value curious, adaptable builders who can show how they've used AI, agents, or automation to move faster, improve quality, and scale their impact. Strong candidates know how to frame problems, guide AI-assisted work, check the output, and learn quickly. Above all, they bring curiosity, adaptability, and sound judgment.

What are the responsibilities of the role?

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of engineers and data scientists who work on the search platform and ML optimizations.

• Define the vision, strategy, and roadmap for search relevance, platform optimizations, and innovation

• Oversee the design, implementation, and evaluation of search engine features and algorithms, such as query understanding, ranking, relevance, personalization, and voice search

• Conduct data analysis and user research to identify search engine opportunities and challenges

• Collaborate with multiple Cloud (ML and engineering) teams, product and business teams to ensure a high degree of alignment and ruthless prioritization in a fast-paced, hyper-growth environment

• Provide technical direction, guidance, mentoring, and hands-on management.

• Plan for operational efficiency to scale products, programs and practices.

• Recruit and manage a world-class Search platform and ML engineering talent.

• Assimilate Roku culture and lead by example to nurture and develop it with the broader team

• Identify, recommend, and develop best practices to improve agility in development pace across geo-distributed teams

What experience would help someone be successful in this role at Roku?

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, with 3+ years of experience in managing engineering teams

• Strong background and hands-on experience in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Information Retrieval

• Proven track record of delivering high-quality and scalable search engine solutions

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across different teams and stakeholders

• Passion for creating a great user experience and solving hard problems

• Experience with voice search, speech recognition, or natural language understanding is a plus

• Experience with cloud computing platforms, such as AWS or GCP, is a plus

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent work experience.