
Principal AI/ML Engineer, Reliability
Roblox · San Mateo, CA
- On site
- Full-time
- $320,145 / year
- San Mateo, CA
Job highlights
- Lead ML strategy for platform reliability.
- Improve anomaly detection and reduce MTTR.
- Build data pipelines and reasoning layers.
- Develop time-series models for scaling.
- Architect ML infrastructure for learning.
About the role
Principal AI/ML Engineer Reliability
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 Reliability?
Roblox serves over 100 million people every day across a platform that is constantly evolving — and behind every experience is infrastructure that has to work, every time, at massive scale. The Reliability team at Roblox operates at the depth and breadth of the Roblox stack. Availability of the platform is a key company goal. We are hiring our first Principal Machine Learning engineer within our team.
As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer within Reliability, you will set the 3-5 year technical strategy and architectural blueprint for how machine learning systems/practices can be leveraged to improve the reliability of the overall Roblox platform. You will own the architectural and execution roadmap of leveraging massive data across - logs, traces, metrics, production changes, to proactively detect issues before they become real problems (MTTD) and/or reduce time to resolve incidents (MTTR). You will have the opportunity to cross functionally collaborate with other similar teams at Roblox to define best practices and software.
You Will
- Define the strategy of leveraging Machine Learning Engineering to improve Production Systems Reliability at Roblox.
- Improve real-time anomaly detection capabilities by leveraging various state of the art ML techniques, thereby directly contributing to improving Mean Time to Detect Production issues.
- Develop methods to build pipelines to consume various streams of data (metrics, logs, traces, change management systems etc.).
- Build a reasoning layer that interacts with the streams of data to find possible root causes of problems happening in production.
- Build time-series models to predict capacity exhaustion and seasonal traffic spikes to drive automated scaling.
You Have
- Beyond off the shelf: We are looking for an expert who has knowledge of various modeling techniques, ability to go deep and fine-tune models to fit our use cases.
- Ability to propose and architect the infrastructure that allows us to implement systems that learn from user and/or automated feedback.
- Good distributed systems fundamentals and understanding of large scale high throughput systems.
You Are
- Comfortable with Ambiguity: You thrive in undefined or open-ended problem spaces, providing structure, clarity, and decisive direction to your teams.
- A Pragmatic Builder: You are scrappy and impact-oriented. You view undefined data and messy systems as opportunities to build structure rather than blockers to progress.
- An Inspiring Leader: Passionate about developing the next generation of technical leaders, managers, and engineers.
- An Executive Communicator: Highly effective at communicating complex technical concepts to both engineering teams and non-technical executive leadership.
- Data & System Oriented: You understand that robust data and systems are the foundation of any production application, and you design infrastructure for scale, correctness, and reliability.
- Curious & Creative: You enjoy tackling hard problems, exploring new technologies, and driving continuous improvements in both systems and workflows.
Compensation & Benefits
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
$295,250—$345,040 USD
Work Arrangement
Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).
Equal Opportunity
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.
Key skills/competency
- Principal AI/ML Engineer
- Reliability Engineering
- Machine Learning
- Production Systems
- Anomaly Detection
- Time-Series Modeling
- Distributed Systems
- Data Pipelines
- Root Cause Analysis
- Capacity Planning
Skills & topics
- AI
- Machine Learning
- ML Engineer
- Reliability
- Production Systems
- Anomaly Detection
- Time-Series
- Distributed Systems
- Data Pipelines
- Roblox
How to get hired
- Research Roblox culture: Study their mission, values, and employee testimonials.
- Tailor your resume: Highlight AI/ML, reliability, and distributed systems experience.
- Showcase impact: Quantify achievements in anomaly detection and MTTR reduction.
- Prepare for interviews: Anticipate questions on ML techniques and system design.
Technical preparation
Behavioral questions
Frequently asked questions
- What are the key responsibilities for a Principal AI/ML Engineer at Roblox?
- As a Principal AI/ML Engineer at Roblox, you will define the technical strategy and architectural roadmap for leveraging machine learning to enhance platform reliability. This involves improving anomaly detection, building data pipelines, developing root cause analysis systems, and creating predictive models for capacity planning.
- What kind of experience is Roblox looking for in a Principal AI/ML Engineer?
- Roblox seeks an expert with deep knowledge of various ML modeling techniques, the ability to fine-tune models, and experience in architecting ML infrastructure. Strong fundamentals in distributed systems and large-scale, high-throughput systems are also essential.
- How does Roblox use Machine Learning for Reliability?
- Roblox utilizes machine learning to proactively detect issues before they become major problems (improving MTTD) and to reduce the time it takes to resolve incidents (MTTR). This is achieved by analyzing massive datasets from logs, traces, and metrics to identify anomalies and predict potential failures.
- What is the work arrangement for this Principal AI/ML Engineer role at Roblox?
- This role is based at the San Mateo, CA headquarters and follows a hybrid work arrangement. Employees are expected to be onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday.
- What is the salary range for a Principal AI/ML Engineer at Roblox?
- The annual salary range for this position at Roblox's San Mateo, CA headquarters is $295,250 to $345,040 USD. This is subject to change and depends on various job-related factors.
- Does Roblox sponsor H-1B visas for this role?
- For US-based roles, Roblox notes that they may not be able to employ candidates with certain US visa categories or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.
- What are the 'soft skills' important for a Principal AI/ML Engineer at Roblox?
- Roblox values individuals who are comfortable with ambiguity, pragmatic builders, inspiring leaders, executive communicators, data and system-oriented, and curious and creative. These qualities are crucial for navigating complex problems and driving innovation.
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