Senior Software Engineer, Ad Auctions

In this role you will build teams focused on the Ads Auction and Marketplace to optimize yield, gross profit, perform realtime multi-objective optimization across various short and long term objectives, build control and simulation systems, design and run experiments and extend the experimentation framework.

You will partner closely with other Engineering, Inventory and Product teams to define the vision and strategy for your group and to build and deliver the roadmap.

What you will be doing

• Lead the design, implementation, and evolution of real-time ads auction systems powering Roku s CTV advertising across The Roku Channel and the Roku platform.
• Own and enhance core auction capabilities including ad pod construction, bid evaluation, ranking, pricing, pacing, budget enforcement, and frequency capping.
• Build low-latency, highly reliable distributed services that operate at massive scale, serving billions of ad opportunities with strict latency and uptime requirements.
• Design auction logic that balances viewer experience (ad load, relevance, repetition) with advertiser performance, publisher yield, and platform revenue.
• Develop and optimize SSP-side auction mechanisms, integrating with multiple DSPs, programmatic demand sources, and direct-sold campaigns.
• Partner closely with product managers, data science, ads research teams to translate marketplace and monetization goals into scalable technical solutions.
• Drive yield optimization through auction design, demand shaping, floor strategies, and pricing experiments.
• Lead experimentation using A/B testing, auction simulations, and offline replay frameworks, and make data-driven decisions based on performance metrics and statistical rigor.
• Ensure auction correctness, fairness, explainability, and transparency, while maintaining compliance with privacy, regulatory, and brand-safety requirements.
• Influence the long-term technical roadmap for Roku Ads by proposing architecture improvements, scalability strategies, and performance optimizations.

We are excited if you have

• 5+ years of experience building large-scale distributed systems
• 5+ years working with cloud-based platforms and infrastructure
• Deep experience in building microservices using Java for container platforms such as Docker or Kubernetes
• Solid understanding of databases SQL and NoSQL
• Hands-on Experience working with AWS, GCP or similar cloud services
• Experience with a breadth of protocols and data formats such as REST, WebSockets, HTTPS, JSON, and Protobuf
• Demonstrated ability to drive timely consensus in design with other senior team members
• Bachelors or Master s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent