Senior Research Data Scientist (San Jose)

Teamwork makes the stream work.Roku is changing how the world watches TVRoku is the #1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and we've set our sights on powering every television in the world. Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. Our mission is to be the TV streaming platform that connects the entire TV ecosystem. We connect consumers to the content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers unique capabilities to engage consumers.From your first day at Roku, you'll make a valuable - and valued - contribution. We're a fast-growing public company where no one is a bystander. We offer you the opportunity to delight millions of TV streamers around the world while gaining meaningful experience across a variety of disciplines.About the teamOur Data Science team is a high-impact research team actively shaping the future of TV, using Big Data to build and enhance the user experience on the Roku streaming platform. Our production-ready machine learning models and statistical solutions optimize the user experience across all of Roku's core business models and products, and our scientists engage closely with business, product, and engineering leaders to make material and measurable impacts on the success and growth of the platform.About the roleAs a Senior Research Data Scientist on Roku's Data Science team, you will lead the development of a best-in-class causal inference platform that measures and optimizes the true incremental impact of customer actions, product features, and business interventions on long-term outcomes. Partnering with the Customer Growth organization, you will build the methods and systems that enable Roku to make high-confidence decisions from observational data when randomized experiments are not feasible.You will own the full lifecycle of causal measurement—from gathering business requirements and defining estimation approaches, to partnering with Engineering to productionize scalable causal pipelines and communicating findings to senior leadership. Your work will directly inform growth, retention, and monetization strategy across the platform, making this role ideal for an applied economist or econometrician who excels at the intersection of rigorous research and production engineering. This is someone equally comfortable deriving identification strategies and building estimators on terabyte-scale data.For California, New York, and Massachusetts only - The estimated annual base salary for this position is between $330,000- $375,000 annually. Compensation packages are based on factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, certifications, and specific geographical location. This role is eligible for health insurance, equity awards, life insurance, disability benefits, parental leave, wellness benefits, and paid time off.How will I use AI at Roku?At Roku, we don’t just use AI, we work with it. AI agents and smart tools help power drafts, analysis, and repetitive workflows, while our people bring direction, judgment, and accountability. We’re looking for curious, adaptable builders who can show how they’ve used AI or automation to move faster, raise the bar, and scale their impact.We value your AI skills if you have built fluency across the agentic engineering toolchain — coding harnesses like Claude Code or Cursor, MCP servers, custom skills, or agent frameworks. And you can describe projects where you shipped real work with these tools. You know how to drive an agent, verify its output, and ramp on an unfamiliar codebase with an agent helping you.What you'll be doingDesign, build, and productionize a causal inference platform that standardizes how Roku measures the incremental impact of customer actions and business decisionsResearch and implement causal estimation methods, including heterogeneous treatment effects, tailored to Roku's data and business questionsBuild long-term outcome frameworks that enable impact projection from limited observation windowsDevelop diagnostic and validation standards at scale to ensure credibility of causal estimatesLeverage AI to create counterfactual scenarios and build tools that help users run, understand, and act on causal estimates correctlyWork cross-functionally with Data Engineering, Product Management, and Core Analytics to translate business questions into well-defined causal problems and deploy production-ready solutionsContribute to the technical vision of the Data Science team and the broader research agenda across causal inference, predictive modeling, and experimentationWe're excited if you havePhD in Economics, Econometrics, Statistics, or a closely related quantitative field with a strong emphasis on causal inference10+ years of experience applying causal inference and machine learning methods to real-world problems, with a demonstrated track record of measurable impactDeep expertise in observational causal methods such as propensity score matching, Double Machine Learning, doubly robust estimation, instrumental variables, and difference-in-differencesExperience building reusable causal inference tools or platforms beyond one-off analysesProficiency with Spark, Ray, SQL, Python, and ML frameworks such as scikit-learn, XGBoost, and LightGBMExperience with terabyte- or petabyte-scale datasets in distributed computing environmentsStrong communication skills with the ability to translate econometric findings into clear business recommendationsTechnology industry experience; connected TV, streaming, or advertising experience is a plus#LI-SB5What's Roku's approach to hybrid working?Roku fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment where teams generally work in the office Monday through Thursday. Fridays are generally flexible for remote work, except for employees whose specific roles or assigned office location require five days' a week attendance.What are some of the benefits?Roku is committed to offering a diverse range of benefits as part of our compensation package to support our employees and their families. Our comprehensive benefits include global access to mental health and financial wellness support and resources. Local benefits include statutory and voluntary benefits which may include healthcare (medical, dental, and vision), life, accident, disability, commuter, and retirement options (401(k)/pension). Employees are supported in taking time off, in accordance with local leave policies and other personal needs to support their evolving work and life needs. It's important to note that not every benefit is available in all locations or for every role. For details specific to your location, please consult with your recruiter.AccommodationsRoku welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and provides reasonable accommodations and adjustments in accordance with applicable law. If you require reasonable accommodation at any point in the hiring process, please direct your inquiries to View email address on apply.placed-app.com should I know about Roku's culture?Roku is a great place for people who want to work in a fast-paced environment where everyone is focused on the company's success rather than their own. We try to surround ourselves with people who are great at their jobs, who are easy to work with, and who keep their egos in check. We appreciate a sense of humor. We believe a fewer number of very talented folks can do more for less cost than a larger number of less talented teams. We're independent thinkers with big ideas who act boldly, move fast and accomplish extraordinary things through collaboration and trust. In short, at Roku you'll be part of a company that's changing how the world watches TV. We have a unique culture that we are proud of. We think of ourselves primarily as problem-solvers, which itself is a two-part idea. We come up with the solution, but the solution isn't real until it is built and delivered to the customer. That penchant for action gives us a pragmatic approach to innovation, one that has served us well since 2002. To learn more about Roku, our global footprint, and how we've grown, visit .By providing your information, you acknowledge that you want Roku to contact you about job roles, that you have read Roku's Applicant Privacy Notice, and understand that Roku will use your information as described in that notice. If you do not wish to receive any communications from Roku regarding this role or similar roles in the future, you may unsubscribe at any time by emailing View email address on apply.placed-app.com.