Senior / Principal Scientist - Developer Monetization

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 our business decisions and to empower and scale product innovations. We cover a wide area of the data spectrum, including analytical data engineering, product analytics, experimentation, causal inference, statistical modeling, economic modeling, and machine learning. Aligned and partnering with product groups, we use this vast tool belt to discover new opportunities and unmet use cases, influence and shape the product roadmap and prioritization, build data products and measure the impact on our community of players and developers.

Why Economy Science at Roblox?

Our vision is to create an efficient, dynamic, and inclusive virtual economy that incentives long-term investment and engagement by all our community members. We achieve this vision by combining economic rigor - expertise from market design, auction theory, price theory, and structural IO - with principled causal measurement into our systems and community-enabling tools. At this time, we seek a very senior technical leader to set and execute rigorous scientific vision for developer monetization. In this role - you will build rigorous tools that enable our game developers to optimize their prices, advance item bundling, and optimize their in-game currencies. This role aligns with a strategic priority and will achieve immense impact and community enablement.

You Will:

• Help lead product development of rigorous economically-principled tools to advance developer earnings
• Advance rigorous economic enablement tools for developers
• Lead economic research and measurement for in-game optimization
• Create and motivate metrics reflective of first-principles, and use them to advance developer experience and economy health
• Design science roadmaps and experimentation agendas to determine success of product feature launches

You Have:

• PhD in Economics, Statistics, Applied Math, Physics, or other technical field
• 8+ years of industry or academic experience in data science, economics, analytics, or machine learning engineering
• 8+ years of experience using scripting languages (Python, R), and big data query/processing languages and tools such as SQL, Hive, Spark and Airflow
• Broader experience applying theory to advance marketplaces or platforms a plus
• Experience in varied environments and track record of simplifying complex and ambiguous problems a plus

You Are:

• Highly proficient in a specialized economics area: multi-sided platform economics, mechanism design, empirical industrial organization, or causal inference
• Experienced in applying economic theory to real marketplaces, deriving strategic insights, and advancing business objectives
• Proficient in data and applied methodologies. You use cutting-edge techniques (or develop new ones) to extract value and drive insights for strategic topics.
• A strong communicator. You understand that analysis must be presented in meaningful ways and lead spirited discussions about the findings. You can explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences and discuss appropriate tradeoffs.
• Passionate about developing other technical talent. You are motivated to share your expertise and develop other team members while leading your own space.
• Expert in data transformation and programming, and proficient in developing data pipelines through use of Spark, Hive, and Airflow

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.

Roles that are based in our San Mateo, CA Headquarters are in-office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional in-office on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).

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. Roblox also provides reasonable accommodations for all candidates during the interview process.