Principal Software Engineer (Data Infrastructure)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (Data Infrastructure): Leading the strategic vision and architectural evolution of core distributed data platforms with an accent on exabyte-scale processing and high-performance engine internals. Focus on driving multi-year technical roadmaps, integrating autonomous AI/ML capabilities, and ensuring system robustness across Kafka, Flink, Spark, and Trino ecosystems.

Location: Must be based in or able to work from the San Mateo, CA headquarters (Hybrid: Onsite Tue-Thu)

Company

Roblox is a global platform for immersive 3D experiences, connecting hundreds of millions of users through a community-driven ecosystem.

What you will do

• Define and drive the end-to-end architectural vision for core data platforms including Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, and Druid.
• Partner with executive leadership and cross-functional teams to align technical roadmaps with business-critical metrics.
• Optimize distributed engine internals, query planning, and memory management to maximize throughput and cost-efficiency.
• Spearhead the integration of AI/ML and LLMs into the data platform for self-serve discovery and autonomous interaction.
• Cultivate engineering excellence by setting architectural standards, mentoring senior staff, and championing chaos engineering.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience building and maintaining production-grade, large-scale distributed systems.
• Expert-level mastery of foundational data technologies: Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, Druid, or Hive.
• Robust proficiency in Java, Go, or Scala with a track record of writing highly performant backend code.
• Proven expertise managing complex stateful data infrastructure on Kubernetes within AWS or GCP.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical direction and consensus across large engineering organizations.
• Must have existing United States work authorization (H-1B sponsorship not supported).

Nice to have

• Contributions to open-source projects in the data infrastructure ecosystem.
• Experience operating infrastructure at consumer-internet scale (100M+ users).

Culture & Benefits

• Equity compensation for all full-time employees.
• Comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Hybrid work model with structured onsite collaboration days.
• Opportunity to solve unique technical challenges at hyper-scale.
• Culture focused on technical rigor, ownership, and proactive system validation.