Principal Software Engineer, Engine Tools

About the role

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.

As a Principal Software Engineer of the Game Engine data model team, you will innovate on the core data structures that form the backbone of Roblox’s platform. In this role you will have first hand opportunity to design and build one of the core technologies that makes the Roblox game engine special.

The Data Model framework provides an interface between engine capabilities and our creators. It also acts as a fabric to core technologies, such as networking, scripting, Studio, rendering and physics which are essential to the high performance of the Roblox game engine. This role is in our San Mateo, CA HQ three days a week (Tuesdays to Thursdays).

You Will:

- Develop engine code that performs well for all user-created games on the Roblox platform.

- Establish the foundational architecture and technical direction for the team.

- Work cross-functionally, across teams and technology platforms to deliver high quality and amazing functionality.

- Lead by example and mentor engineers to implement technological best practices, patterns, and strategies.

- Improve the product quality by encouraging automation testing.

- Take Ownership of projects throughout their full lifecycles.

- Execute on all the devices Roblox supports - from desktop clients to mobile phone clients to console clients.

You Have:

- At least 8+ years experience and expertise with C++ code-generation and analysis tools (libclang, Abstract Syntax Trees, etc).

- Outstanding systems-level C++ programming skills.

- Curiosity about the actual work the CPU does when you use smart pointers, templates, virtual functions, and blocks of memory, both structured and raw.

- BS or MS in Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.

Additional Considerations:

- Familiarity with game engines or other large-scale simulations is beneficial.

- Excellent interpersonal skills and follow-through.

- Ability to build systems that work and keep on working optimally.

- Detailed in handling potential failure cases, and diligent in automated testing.