Principal Data Scientist, Economy Recommendations

We are looking for a Principal Data Scientist to lead the measurement, strategic, and algorithmic foundations for our Economy Recommendation systems. Roblox operates multiple two-sided marketplaces, from the Avatar Marketplace where creators sell expressive items, to in-experience economies driven by developers. You will own the ranking initiatives that power these critical canvases. You will build the economic and social frameworks that decide which experiences and items thrive. You will serve as a technical leader driving the roadmap for our most critical consumer and developer touchpoints.

Why Economy Recommendations?

• Real-world scale: Power millions of daily economic interactions across a complex, two-sided marketplace where millions of creators meet over 100 million daily active users.
• Complex surfaces, rich signals: Design algorithms and measurement frameworks that account for the nuances of a two-sided marketplace, social network effects, long-term user attachment, and supply response.
• Strategic ownership: Lead projects from scratch, translating ambiguous business and policy questions into rigorous quantitative frameworks that directly influence high-stakes company decisions.
• Impact meets innovation: Partner with ML Engineering and Product to shape the future of the Roblox economy, building measurement solutions that optimize for long-term ecosystem health and growth.

• Set the Technical Direction: Lead the development of retrieval and ranking solutions that power the Economy recommendation engine and surfaces.
• Measure Long-Term Impact: Build rigorous measurement and causal inference solutions to enable ranking models to optimize for long-term ecosystem health, creator growth, and platform economics rather than just short-term conversion.
• Drive Strategy: Partner with product and engineering leaders as a primary scientific advocate, providing unbiased measurement and insights to accelerate innovation and strategic prioritization.
• Prototype & Productize: Develop ranking prototypes to demonstrate what is possible, and partner closely with ML Engineering (MLE) to productize these solutions at scale.
• Elevate the Team: Mentor and grow other data scientists on the team, create a culture of scientific excellence, and drive alignment on the long-term technical direction of the Economy space.

• 8+ years of industry or research experience in Data Science, Economics, or ML Engineering, specifically within large-scale recommendation systems, pricing, or UGC content platforms.
• Deep Methodological Expertise in quantitative methodologies, causal inference (observational and experimental), and modern data stack tools (Python, R, SQL, Hive, Spark, Airflow), along with a deep theoretical and practical understanding of Deep Learning.
• Marketplace Intuition with a proven track record of working with large-scale transactional or platform data to analyze micro-level user behavior and isolate its impact on long-term outcomes and platform health.
• Executive Communication & Leadership skills to distill high-dimensional problems into succinct, actionable narratives for non-technical executive audiences. You are a systems thinker and a deep collaborator who can initiate and facilitate challenging technical decisions across multiple teams.
• An Advanced Degree (Master’s or PhD) in Economics, Econometrics, Quantitative Finance, Statistics, Operations Research, Physics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field.

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 as described on this page.

$322,820—$373,680 USD

Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).

For US based roles only, please note the Company may not be able to employ candidates for this role who have United States work authorization related to certain U.S. visa categories, or support future H-1B sponsorship at this time.

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.

At Roblox, we’re building the tools and platform that empower a global community of creators and developers to build immersive experiences and a dynamic virtual economy. Our Data Science & Engineering organization sits at the heart of this mission, delivering the strategic, causal, and algorithmic insights that power personalization, pricing, and content understanding across all Economy surfaces.