Software Engineer, Early Careers AI/UI

About the role

Roku is a streaming company. We are not an AI-first company and we are not going to tell you we are.

What we are doing is building real agentic capability into the platform behind 100M+ streaming households, and we need engineers who can make agents work on top of systems that already carry serious load.

This is a systems engineering job first. The agent work sits on telemetry, distributed services and physical devices, and it is the systems half that makes it hard. If you have built something agentic and you also know why a schema change matters when it ships to millions of devices, this is the role for you!

About the team

Join the Roku OS Platform UI team — the engineers behind Roku's home screen, Roku Channel and other content discovery and browse experiences that greet every Roku user the moment they turn on their TV. Our work ships to hundreds of millions of devices worldwide.

We move fast and hold a high bar. Engineers on this team own features end-to-end — from the OS platform layer through Application and UI to cloud integration — and collaborate closely with product, design, and cross-functional engineering partners to bring ambitious ideas to production at scale.

What you will work on

• Multi-step agents that do real work in production. Detecting regressions across services, bisecting the commits that caused them, proposing fixes, generating and reviewing code that other engineers review and merge.
• Internal tooling that your colleagues actually adopt. Skills, harnesses and services that make the team faster, rather than demos that get admired once.
• Real-time telemetry and event processing at streaming scale, under the CPU and memory constraints that come with shipping to devices in people’s homes.
• Agent problems that only exist when there is hardware in the loop: physical feedback, device fleets, and signals you cannot simulate on a laptop.

What we are looking for

• Up to 3/4 years of professional engineering experience since you finished studying.
• Strong systems or infrastructure fundamentals. Real-time data, telemetry, distributed systems, platforms, or device work. This is the part we will not compromise on.
• Something agentic that you have built and shipped, and that other people use. A work project or a serious personal one, and multi-step rather than a wrapper around a chat window. Come ready to talk about what it does and what broke.
• A clear account of how you stay accountable for code you did not type. Design-first, review discipline, your own gates. We do not mind which, as long as it is yours, and you can explain it.
• A view on where agents are not good enough yet and why
• The existing right to work in the US. We are not able to sponsor visas for this role.

How we interview

Working fluently with AI tools is an explicit expectation for this role, so we assess it directly rather than asking you to describe it. The loop includes a hands-on engineering exercise on an unfamiliar codebase, using the tools you would normally reach for. We are watching how you approach a problem you have not seen before, not whether you have memorized an API.

Project Ahsoka

This role sits inside Project Ahsoka, our program for early career engineers building agentic systems. It is a defined program rather than a label: you are paired with a mentor, you join a squad team with the other Ahsoka engineers, and you become an AI hiring sponsor, which means you help set the bar for the people who come after you.

Location and work model

San Jose, California

Roku engineering works in the office Monday to Thursday, with a flexible Friday.

We are not asking you to be in the office five days a week, and we are not going to pretend the role is remote.

What's Roku's approach to hybrid working?

Roku fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment where teams generally work in the office Monday through Thursday. Fridays are generally flexible for remote work, except for employees whose specific roles or assigned office location require five days' a week attendance.

What are some of the benefits?

Roku is committed to offering a diverse range of benefits as part of our compensation package to support our employees and their families. Our comprehensive benefits include global access to mental health and financial wellness support and resources. Local benefits include statutory and voluntary benefits which may include healthcare (medical, dental, and vision), life, accident, disability, commuter, and retirement options (401(k)/pension). Employees are supported in taking time off, in accordance with local leave policies and other personal needs to support their evolving work and life needs. It's important to note that not every benefit is available in all locations or for every role. For details specific to your location, please consult with your recruiter.

Accommodations

Roku welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and provides reasonable accommodations and adjustments in accordance with applicable law. If you require reasonable accommodation at any point in the hiring process, please direct your inquiries to [email protected].

What should I know about Roku's culture?

Roku is a great place for people who want to work in a fast-paced environment where everyone is focused on the company's success rather than their own. We try to surround ourselves with people who are great at their jobs, who are easy to work with, and who keep their egos in check. We appreciate a sense of humor. We believe a fewer number of very talented folks can do more for less cost than a larger number of less talented teams. We're independent thinkers with big ideas who act boldly, move fast and accomplish extraordinary things through collaboration and trust. In short, at Roku you'll be part of a company that's changing how the world watches TV. 

We have a unique culture that we are proud of. We think of ourselves primarily as problem-solvers, which itself is a two-part idea. We come up with the solution, but the solution isn't real until it is built and delivered to the customer. That penchant for action gives us a pragmatic approach to innovation, one that has served us well since 2002.

To learn more about Roku, our global footprint, and how we've grown, visit https://www.weareroku.com/factsheet.

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