ROBLOX Corporation

[2026] Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Systems), Embodied AI/NPCs, ML Platform - PhD Early Career

ROBLOX Corporation$196K — $243K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field, with a relevant thesis.
  • Experience in building end-to-end machine learning pipelines.
  • Proficient in managing model inference and deployment processes.
  • Experience with novel datasets and developing real-world agentic applications.
  • Familiarity with scaling high-performance architectures and systems.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and maintain robust data pipelines for complex 3D game states and player actions.
  • Train novel architectures for feature extraction in NPC models.
  • Optimize real-time model inference for autonomously deployed NPCs.
  • Build and maintain core components of the machine learning platform including serving layers and model registries.
  • Create user-friendly developer experiences with streamlined tools and templates.
  • Architect scalable distributed inference systems for large models.
  • Perform performance analysis and optimization of ML models on GPU architectures.

Benefits

  • Equity compensation for all full-time employees.
  • Comprehensive benefits package including health and wellness programs.
  • Flexible working schedule with partial remote options.
Full Job Description
Team
  • Creator Services Machine Intelligence Team: The Machine Intelligence team is building an NPC system that can (1) play any Roblox game and (2) perform real-time inference efficiently enough to support deployment to all Roblox players.
  • ML Platform Team: The Foundation AI Group is on a mission to establish Roblox as the standard for 3D foundational models (3DFMs), democratizing creation by making it simple for anyone to generate high-quality, immersive 3D experiences using AI. The AI Platform team is a foundational part of this vision, supporting hundreds of ML use cases and billions of inferences daily across Discovery, Safety, Engine, and more. We are seeking exceptional PhD new graduates to drive innovation across three critical areas: AI Platform, Distributed Inference Systems.

What You Will Do

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will be a key contributor to building the cutting-edge systems that power AI at Roblox.

Creator Services Machine Intelligence Team
  • Develop Scale Data Pipelines: Design, build and maintain robust data pipelines to collect complex 3D game states and real-time player actions across the platform.
  • Train Novel Architectures: Solve the feature extraction across games for NPC model in a general and scalable way and drive model training speed for novel, sophisticated deep learning architectures.
  • Optimize Real-Time Inference: Engineer high-performance model inference solutions to support the seamless deployment of 10s to 100s of autonomous NPCs in real-time environments.

ML Platform Team

Track 1: AI Platform Projects
  • Build and maintain core platform components: Serving Layer, Model Registry, Pipeline Orchestrator, and Training/Inference control planes.
  • Design great developer experiences (paved-road templates, tooling, visualizations) to reduce time-to-production and ensure foundational AI systems are scalable and reliable.

Track 2: Distributed Inference & Systems Optimization
  • Architect and implement scalable distributed inference systems for efficiently serving LLMs and Large Recommender Models at massive scale.
  • Optimize our inference engine to serve millions of QPS at low latency.
  • Conduct deep, low-level performance analysis and optimize ML models (using techniques like continuous batching, speculative decoding, and quantization) and systems on GPU architectures to maintain peak performance and stability.

You Have
  • Possessing or pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related technical field, with a thesis aligned to Roblox's research areas.
  • Built end-to-end ML pipelines and managed model inference and deployment.
  • Experience with novel datasets, and building real-world agentic applications.
  • Scaled high-performance, high-availability architectures.
  • Handledinfrastructure using Kubernetes and major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, or GCP).


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

$196,750-$243,290 USD

Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).

About ROBLOX Corporation

Roblox Corporation is a video game company that operates a massively multiplayer online game platform. The platform allows users to create and play games in a virtual world, with a focus on user-generated content. Roblox was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. The company has grown rapidly in recent years, and now has over 100 million monthly active users. In 2021, Roblox went public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Learn more about ROBLOX Corporation
Size
960 employees
Market Cap
$15.6 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$242.8 million
Founded
2004
Revenue
$727 million
NASDAQ

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