Weekend Programmer Jobs in Tenafly, NJ (NOW HIRING)

LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER - ROKU

Location: On-Site - New York / Los Angeles / San Francisco / Ft. Lauderdale

ABOUT THE ROLE

You'll own the technical direction of the Paramount+ Roku application - the platform, the patterns, the architecture. This is a hands-on leadership role where you write and review code and set the standard for a team of engineers shipping features to millions of viewers.

Roku's constraints - tight memory budgets, a single-threaded render loop, hardware spanning five years of device generations - are the environment you thrive in, not just tolerate. You know these constraints well enough to teach them, and you'll lead a team through them.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Set technical direction for the Paramount+ Roku application - choose the patterns, own the architecture, defend the decisions
Build and maintain core framework components and features - this is a hands-on role where you ship code
Lead a team of Roku engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and feedback that helps people grow Architect around Roku's constraints: memory limits, render-thread/task-thread boundaries, device performance tiers, and certification requirements Ship real-time personalization features - personalized recommendations, dynamic artwork, and ad engagement experiences - within Roku's memory and threading constraints
Drive adoption of RSG 1.3 data transfer APIs, BrightScript Memory Monitor, and Perfetto tracing across the team
Scope projects, identify risks before they become blockers, and keep the team shipping
Coordinate with Product, Design, Backend Engineering, and DevOps/SRE to translate requirements into plans your team can execute
Write architecture docs, RFCs, and component guides so decisions are visible and durable
Maintain and improve CI/CD pipelines, testing infrastructure, and build tooling
Design and run A/B tests, then act on the results
Use AI development tools to move faster, and help the team adopt them

WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE

Your team ships on time because you scoped the work correctly - not because anyone worked weekends
Engineers on your team grow quarter over quarter. They take on harder problems this quarter than last. You can name what changed
You open a 200-file BrightScript repo you've never seen and start making changes the same day - and you've given your team the docs and context to do the same You notice a memory spike on a Roku Express before QA files a ticket. You fix it, write up what happened, and turn it into a pattern the team follows You write architecture decisions down. Six months later, a new engineer reads one and understands why you chose what you chose
You push back when a plan has gaps and suggest a better one - without making people feel small
You treat the build pipeline, test coverage, and error monitoring like product features
You make the people around you better at their jobs. They'd say so if asked

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

8+ years writing software
4+ years building Roku applications
2+ years leading a team or serving as a technical lead BS in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent work experience Strong foundation in OOP, data structures, and algorithms - able to design systems and evaluate others' designs
BrightScript and SceneGraph SDK, including RSG 1.3 - you can explain the tradeoffs between MoveIntoField, PostMessage, and CopyMessage without looking them up
Deep command of the Roku threading model and where performance falls apart on low-end devices
Roku frameworks and services: RAF, RMF, RokuPay
Unit and integration testing on Roku - you've built test infrastructure, not just written tests
RESTful API design, HTTP caching behavior, and CDN interaction
Git and GitHub
Strong technical writing - architecture docs and plans that people actually read and act on
Active use of AI development tools (Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or similar) with concrete examples of how they've changed how you work

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

BrighterScript and Roku community tooling (ropm, bslint, roku-debug)
Other OTT platforms: Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Samsung TV, LG webOS
Observability tools: Conviva, New Relic, Datadog, Sentry Microservices and backend-for-frontend patterns Experience integrating personalization or recommendation systems into connected-device applications
Experience with real-time or event-driven architectures on client platforms
E2E testing for connected-device applications
Docker and CI/CD tooling (Jenkins or similar)
GraphQL
Track record of introducing AI tools to a team - actual adoption, not just a demo
You care about UX enough to push back on Product and Design when something isn't right
You've worked across time zones without waiting for meetings to unblock yourself

Paramount is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace.

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