Senior Research Data Scientist, Martech

About The Team 

Our Data Science team is an elite 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-level 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 Role 

As a Senior Research Data Scientist on Roku’s Data Science team, this is your opportunity to be at the forefront of machine learning innovation, developing advanced analytical solutions and production-ready systems with measurable impact. By analysing user behaviour, applying cutting-edge techniques from machine learning, operations research, and advanced statistics, and visualising complex platform dynamics, you’ll help shape the future of the Roku platform.

This role focuses on transforming marketing across Media, Subscriptions, Devices, and Roku’s Platform by designing intelligent solutions that optimise every aspect of campaign execution—targeting the right segments, tailoring messaging, selecting channels, and predicting the best timing. The work includes building a Machine Learning (ML) ecosystem to optimise campaigns across key business areas, developing algorithm-driven solutions to identify high-impact consumer segments, and enhancing cross-channel orchestration with unified strategies. It also involves creating recommendation systems for personalised messaging, offers, and content to drive engagement, designing ML-based bidding strategies to optimise performance in real-time auctions, and producing insights that refine and optimise marketing strategies.

Collaboration with engineering teams will be key to productionalising these ML models, ensuring scalability and seamless integration into the marketing technology ecosystem. This role suits a data scientist who thrives in a fast-paced, intellectually challenging environment and is passionate about solving complex problems, refining analytical methods, and leaving a tangible mark on the future of connected TV advertising.

This role is ideal for a data enthusiast who thrives in a fast-paced, intellectually challenging environment—someone who relishes solving complex problems, continually refining analytical methods, and having a tangible impact on the connected TV advertising landscape 

What You Will Do

• Dive into large datasets, clean and interpret data, and derive insights to improve business and product performance.
• Research and develop new algorithms and techniques for ML-driven and AI systems.
• Build best-in-class algorithms to solve product and business challenges, defining problem statements and meeting technical and research objectives.
• Run live experiments to test and validate improvements.
• Collaborate with engineering and product teams to deploy scalable, production-ready data science products.
• Provide expert consultation across teams, including other data scientists within Roku.
• Contribute to the technical vision of the Data Science team.

We're Excited If You Have

• A PhD degree (or equivalent experience) in Machine Learning, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Economics, or a related field.
• Significant experience as an ML engineer, applied scientist, or research scientist, particularly in AdTech or MarTech, with a proven ability to drive measurable business impact.
• Expertise in causal inference, multi-armed bandits (MAB), reinforcement learning, control systems, and heterogeneous treatment effect estimation.
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities, combined with strong communication skills.
• Deep understanding of algorithms and data structures for optimisation.
• Proficiency in tools like Spark, SQL, Python, R, or similar.
• Experience with large-scale datasets (TB or PB) is highly desirable.

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