Senior Software Engineer, Ads Auction Platform

Overview

Teamwork makes the stream work. Roku is changing how the world watches TV. Roku is the #1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and we aim to power every television in the world. Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. Our mission is to be the TV streaming platform that connects the entire TV ecosystem. We connect consumers to the content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers unique capabilities to engage consumers.

From your first day at Roku, you ll make a valuable - and valued - contribution. We re a fast-growing public company where no one is a bystander. We offer you the opportunity to delight millions of TV streamers around the world while gaining meaningful experience across a variety of disciplines.

The Advertising Performance group focuses on performance for all participants in the Advertising ecosystem — Advertisers, Publishers and Roku. The systems and solutions span across different disciplines and technologies to perform real-time multi-objective optimization with distributed systems at large scale and low latencies. We use Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, AI, Control and Optimization Systems and Auction Dynamics to solve a large set of complex problems.

At the core of this is our Machine Learning, Experimentation and Inference Platform that powers the entire landscape which we continuously evolve over time.

In this role, you will contribute to the Ads Auction and Marketplace systems that optimize yield, gross profit, and real-time multi-objective outcomes across short- and long-term goals. You will work on core auction capabilities, low-latency services, and scalable integrations that support Roku’s CTV advertising platform. You will partner closely with Engineering, Inventory, Product, and Data Science teams to translate business objectives into robust technical solutions.

You will help design, implement, and evaluate auction improvements through experimentation and performance analysis. This is a strong fit for an engineer who enjoys distributed systems, real-time decisioning, and measurable impact in a high-scale marketplace.

• Contribute to the design and implementation of real-time ads auction systems for Roku’s CTV advertising platform
• Build and improve auction features including ad pod construction, bid evaluation, ranking, pricing, pacing, and frequency capping
• Develop low-latency, reliable services that handle high-scale ad serving with strict performance and uptime requirements
• Implement auction logic that balances advertiser performance, publisher yield, and platform revenue
• Work on SSP-side auction integration with DSPs, programmatic demand sources, and direct-sold campaigns
• Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, and researchers to translate requirements into scalable solutions
• Support yield optimization through auction enhancements, pricing experiments, and demand optimization features
• Participate in A/B testing and experimentation, analyze results, and help implement data-driven improvements
• Help ensure auction correctness and compliance with privacy, regulatory, and brand-safety requirements
• Contribute to technical discussions around architecture, scalability, and performance optimization

• Experience building distributed backend services at scale
• Strong coding skills in Java and familiarity with service-oriented architectures
• Experience with low-latency systems and real-time decisioning workflows
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and containerized deployments
• Working knowledge of ad tech concepts such as auctions, pacing, and frequency controls
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders across product and data teams
• Comfort with experimentation frameworks and A/B testing analysis
• Strong problem-solving skills and a focus on reliability, observability, and maintainability

Roku fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment where teams work in the office Monday through Thursday. Fridays are flexible for remote work except for employees whose roles are required to be in…