Senior Data Scientist - Search

Every day, tens of millions of people come to Roblox to explore, create, play, learn, and connect with friends in 3D immersive digital experiences– all created by our global community of developers and creators. 

At Roblox, we’re building the tools and platform that empower our community to bring any experience that they can imagine to life. Our vision is to reimagine the way people come together, from anywhere in the world, and on any device. We’re on a mission to connect a billion people with optimism and civility, and looking for amazing talent to help us get there. 

A career at Roblox means you’ll be working to shape the future of human interaction, solving unique technical challenges at scale, and helping to create safer, more civil shared experiences for everyone.

WHY DATA SCIENCE & ANALYTICS?

The Data Science & Analytics organization's mission is to increase our speed, frequency and acumen of making decisions at scale by instilling a data-influenced approach to building products. We cover a wide area of the data spectrum including analytical data engineering, product analytics, experimentation, causal inference, statistical modeling and machine learning. Aligned and partnering with product verticals, we use this extensive toolbelt to discover new opportunities and unmet use cases, influence and shape the product roadmap and prioritization, build data products and measure impact on our community of players and developers.

WHY SEARCH & DISCOVERY?

As a Senior Data Scientist in Search & Discovery team, you will drive strategy and insights on how we provide a personalized experience that enables users to seamlessly search the metaverse. The team's mission is to connect a billion users with the best connections and content at the right time, covering an extremely diverse range of recommendations and high-scale search problems. This is fundamental to how we personalize the experience to increase engagement and retention for Roblox users. Our Search systems suggest the relevant experiences the users want to see and engage across all surfaces. You will partner with data scientists, product managers, and engineers across the company to better understand our players and builders, performing ad hoc analysis, creating dashboards, defining KPIs, applying models, and designing/analyzing A/B experiments.

You Are:

• Passionate about data. You have the curiosity and drive to continuously learn new techniques and tools to extract value from data. You understand when to apply the appropriate methodology to maximize impact in a pragmatic fashion.
• A keen and deliberate thinker. You get excited when you encounter a challenging business opportunity with a significant upside potential. You bring your data-driven perspectives to drive business decisions.
• A strong communicator. You understand that analysis must be presented in meaningful ways and lead spirited discussions about the findings. You have the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences and discuss tradeoffs.
• An expert transforming data with SQL and a scripting language such as Python or R. You're experienced in crunching massive volumes of data and developing solutions to solve difficult business problems.

You Will:

• Accelerate product development through your understanding of the underlying data and your ability to partner with product and technical leaders to provide insights that drive growth.
• Access raw data, and then transform it, analyze it, and render it in a compelling way--all using a custom analytics tool kit built from state-of-the-art open-source libraries.
• Own key metrics and identify causal levers to inform strategic investments
• Build dashboards to understand root causes of changes in metrics.
• Evaluate A/B experiments to determine success of product feature launches.
• Drive personalized experiences for Roblox through data-driven insights

Basic Qualifications:

• 7+ years of industry experience doing quantitative analysis
• 4+ years of experience using big data query/processing languages such as SQL, Hive or Spark to transform/manipulate very large datasets
• 4+ years of experience in one or more scripting languages such as Python or R
• 2+ years of experience in statistical modeling and machine learning
• BA/BS in Computer Science, Applied Math, Physics, Engineering, Statistics, Economics or other technical field

Preferred Qualifications:

• 10+ years of industry experience doing quantitative analysis
• Advanced Degree in Computer Science, Applied Math, Physics, Engineering, Statistics, Economics or other technical field
• 4+ years of experience in statistical modeling and machine learning
• Experience with scalable search solutions that serve content to millions or billions of users
• Experience understanding the strengths and weaknesses of neural network models with a strong desire for explainability
• Ability to communicate analytics results and data storytelling to influence product direction

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.Annual Salary Range$295,490—$359,170 USD

You’ll Love: 

• Industry-leading compensation package
• Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage
• A rewarding 401k program
• Flexible vacation policy
• Roflex - Flexible and supportive work policy 
• Roblox Admin badge for your avatar
• At Roblox HQ: 
• Free catered lunches five times a week and several fully stocked kitchens with unlimited snacks
• Onsite fitness center and fitness program credit
• Annual CalTrain Go Pass

Roblox provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.