J-1 Visa Principal Full Stack Engineer Jobs
Principal Full Stack Engineer roles in the United States are accessible to international professionals through the J-1 Trainee or Research Scholar program categories, depending on your career stage. Securing sponsorship requires a designated State Department organization to issue your DS-2019, separate from your host employer.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
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.
As a Principal Software Engineer on Creator Services Data, you’ll be leading the company’s efforts to build the next generation Data Storage systems to power the millions of experiences on the Roblox Platform. We run the mission critical cloud services, Data Stores, Memory Stores, and Badges, which are crucial for storing game state such as inventory and scores, implementing leaderboards, server lists, and trading, and tracking player progress and achievements. Our team is also responsible for building dashboards to provide insights to Creators using cloud services including Client/Server Performance, Data Stores, and Memory Stores. Finally, our team owns the Roblox Extended Services platform, which provides the capability for large experiences to purchase additional resources for existing services like Data Stores and new services built around compute and generative AI. At its core, this team is focused on solving complex back end distributed systems and storage problems at scale. However, our scope extends to full stack projects spanning all the way from the infrastructure layer, through data storage and data pipelines, microservices, telemetry, game servers, web development, UI, and UX design. This team collaborates on multiple cross-company efforts and our projects are of extremely high importance to Roblox.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
You Will
- Lead the design and development of improvements to existing products and design new cloud services to support our Creator Community.
- Build state-of-the-art data storage systems including infrastructure, serving layers, clients, and web APIs.
- Expand the internal and customer facing cloud service observability capabilities through metrics collection, data pipelines, intelligent analytics, data visualization, and dashboards.
- Increase the capabilities and onboard new customers to the Roblox Extended Services platform.
- Work with our users (Creators) to identify product gaps and bugs and handle customer emergencies.
- Provide on-call support for our Data products including responding to production alerts and outages.
- Mentor junior engineers and provide technical and non-technical guidance through design and code reviews, joint projects, 1:1s, and peer feedback.
- Lead collaborations on a cross-functional team including UX design, product management, project management, developer relations, documentation, customer support, and other engineering teams.
- Become a recognized technical leader across the company and contribute to company-wide initiatives.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
You Have
- 10+ years background in software development building with public clouds (AWS, Azure, and GCP), microservices and distributed systems
- 3+ years experience building and maintaining (not just using) data storage systems (relational databases, key/value stores, blob stores, etc)
- 10+ years designing, implementing, testing, and deploying robust, scalable, and well documented production-grade code
- 6+ years programming in C# and/or C++ (ideally both)
- 6+ years experience working on agile, fast-paced, high-impact software teams
- 4+ years leading junior engineers and new graduates on complex software engineering projects
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Desired (one or more of)
- Prior experience building big data pipelines or batch processing systems (MapReduce, Hadoop, Flink, Spark, Flume)
- Prior experience programming computer games, particularly in Lua/Luau
- Prior knowledge of data science, data analytics, machine learning, or AI
- Prior experience building graphical user interfaces, dashboards, or web application front ends
YOU ARE
- Innovative: We strive for novel solutions that bridge the technical needs of Roblox with the creative needs of our developer community. This typically involves tackling competing objectives and thinking creatively.
- Passionate: We are looking for new team members who are passionate about data storage technology, computer games, and software development. We are excited about building new products that will redefine the future of human online interaction.
- Versatile: The Data Pod is expanding its scope beyond providing low level storage solutions to building higher level services such as User Profiles and LiveOps Analytics. We are also working on projects such as Observability and Billing & Payments platforms. You need to be ready to learn new programming languages and tech stacks as we evolve.
- Responsible: Data Storage services cannot go down and cannot lose data. You are committed to join a team that strives for a 100% uptime and data durability.
- Team Oriented: You are ready to both guide and learn from others. You will set the standard on team collaboration and communication. You exemplify Roblox Values and Principles.
COMPENSATION
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.
- Annual Salary Range: $345,040—$399,420 USD
Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).
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 to candidates with qualifying disabilities or religious beliefs during the recruiting process.
INTRODUCTION
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.
As a Principal Software Engineer on Creator Services Data, you’ll be leading the company’s efforts to build the next generation Data Storage systems to power the millions of experiences on the Roblox Platform. We run the mission critical cloud services, Data Stores, Memory Stores, and Badges, which are crucial for storing game state such as inventory and scores, implementing leaderboards, server lists, and trading, and tracking player progress and achievements. Our team is also responsible for building dashboards to provide insights to Creators using cloud services including Client/Server Performance, Data Stores, and Memory Stores. Finally, our team owns the Roblox Extended Services platform, which provides the capability for large experiences to purchase additional resources for existing services like Data Stores and new services built around compute and generative AI. At its core, this team is focused on solving complex back end distributed systems and storage problems at scale. However, our scope extends to full stack projects spanning all the way from the infrastructure layer, through data storage and data pipelines, microservices, telemetry, game servers, web development, UI, and UX design. This team collaborates on multiple cross-company efforts and our projects are of extremely high importance to Roblox.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
You Will
- Lead the design and development of improvements to existing products and design new cloud services to support our Creator Community.
- Build state-of-the-art data storage systems including infrastructure, serving layers, clients, and web APIs.
- Expand the internal and customer facing cloud service observability capabilities through metrics collection, data pipelines, intelligent analytics, data visualization, and dashboards.
- Increase the capabilities and onboard new customers to the Roblox Extended Services platform.
- Work with our users (Creators) to identify product gaps and bugs and handle customer emergencies.
- Provide on-call support for our Data products including responding to production alerts and outages.
- Mentor junior engineers and provide technical and non-technical guidance through design and code reviews, joint projects, 1:1s, and peer feedback.
- Lead collaborations on a cross-functional team including UX design, product management, project management, developer relations, documentation, customer support, and other engineering teams.
- Become a recognized technical leader across the company and contribute to company-wide initiatives.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
You Have
- 10+ years background in software development building with public clouds (AWS, Azure, and GCP), microservices and distributed systems
- 3+ years experience building and maintaining (not just using) data storage systems (relational databases, key/value stores, blob stores, etc)
- 10+ years designing, implementing, testing, and deploying robust, scalable, and well documented production-grade code
- 6+ years programming in C# and/or C++ (ideally both)
- 6+ years experience working on agile, fast-paced, high-impact software teams
- 4+ years leading junior engineers and new graduates on complex software engineering projects
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Desired (one or more of)
- Prior experience building big data pipelines or batch processing systems (MapReduce, Hadoop, Flink, Spark, Flume)
- Prior experience programming computer games, particularly in Lua/Luau
- Prior knowledge of data science, data analytics, machine learning, or AI
- Prior experience building graphical user interfaces, dashboards, or web application front ends
YOU ARE
- Innovative: We strive for novel solutions that bridge the technical needs of Roblox with the creative needs of our developer community. This typically involves tackling competing objectives and thinking creatively.
- Passionate: We are looking for new team members who are passionate about data storage technology, computer games, and software development. We are excited about building new products that will redefine the future of human online interaction.
- Versatile: The Data Pod is expanding its scope beyond providing low level storage solutions to building higher level services such as User Profiles and LiveOps Analytics. We are also working on projects such as Observability and Billing & Payments platforms. You need to be ready to learn new programming languages and tech stacks as we evolve.
- Responsible: Data Storage services cannot go down and cannot lose data. You are committed to join a team that strives for a 100% uptime and data durability.
- Team Oriented: You are ready to both guide and learn from others. You will set the standard on team collaboration and communication. You exemplify Roblox Values and Principles.
COMPENSATION
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.
- Annual Salary Range: $345,040—$399,420 USD
Roles that are based in an office are onsite Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with optional presence on Monday and Friday (unless otherwise noted).
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 to candidates with qualifying disabilities or religious beliefs during the recruiting process.
See all 12+ Principal Full Stack Engineer jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Principal Full Stack Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding J-1 Visa Sponsorship as a Principal Full Stack Engineer
Align your credentials to specialty occupation standards
Before applying, map your engineering portfolio to a specific technical discipline. J-1 Trainee and Research Scholar categories require documented expertise, so a generic full stack resume weakens your DS-2019 application with the designated sponsor organization.
Identify host employers with DS-2019 experience
Target U.S. tech companies that have previously hosted J-1 engineers. Employers unfamiliar with the host-organization distinction often conflate J-1 sponsorship with H-1B filing, which stalls offers. Use Migrate Mate to filter for roles at J-1-aligned employers.
Build a training plan before your first interview
The J-1 Trainee category mandates a formal training plan covering specific skills, timelines, and supervision structure. Draft this document before interviewing so you can present it to prospective host employers early and avoid offer delays.
Verify the 2-year home residency requirement applies to you
Government-funded exchange visitors and nationals from countries on the Exchange Visitor Skills List may face a two-year home residency requirement after J-1 status ends. Confirm your eligibility for a waiver before accepting a Principal Engineer role that expects long-term retention.
Distinguish your designated sponsor from your host employer
Your host employer evaluates your technical qualifications and makes the hiring decision. Your designated sponsor, such as CIEE or Cultural Vistas, issues the DS-2019 and monitors program compliance. Confusing these roles during negotiations delays your start date.
Request the offer letter before DS-2019 processing begins
Designated sponsors cannot initiate DS-2019 paperwork without a confirmed host employer offer. Secure a written offer letter that specifies your role, compensation structure, and supervision arrangement, then submit it to your designated sponsor to open the file.
Principal Full Stack Engineer jobs are hiring across the US. Find yours.
Find Principal Full Stack Engineer JobsPrincipal Full Stack Engineer J-1 Visa: Frequently Asked Questions
Which J-1 program category fits a Principal Full Stack Engineer role?
Most Principal Full Stack Engineers enter through the J-1 Trainee category if they have fewer than five years of post-degree professional experience, or the Research Scholar category if the role involves applied research at a university or research institution. The Trainee category suits industry positions at tech companies, while Research Scholar fits academic or lab-based engineering work.
Is the hiring company my J-1 visa sponsor?
No. The J-1 visa sponsor is a U.S. Department of State-designated organization, such as CIEE, Cultural Vistas, or the Institute of International Education, that issues your DS-2019 form and oversees program compliance. Your employer acts as the host organization. The employer assesses your technical qualifications, but the designated sponsor holds the legal sponsorship responsibility.
How do I find U.S. employers open to hosting J-1 engineers?
Search Migrate Mate to identify Principal Full Stack Engineer roles at U.S. employers that have demonstrated openness to exchange visitor arrangements. Many engineering teams haven't formally structured a J-1 host agreement before, so targeting employers already familiar with the process reduces back-and-forth during offer negotiations.
What does the formal training plan requirement mean for a senior engineering role?
The J-1 Trainee category requires a written training plan specifying learning objectives, weekly activities, supervisors, and duration. For a Principal Engineer, this plan should document the advanced technical skills being developed or transferred, not just routine duties. Your designated sponsor reviews and approves the plan before issuing the DS-2019, so it must be substantive and role-specific.
Does the two-year home residency requirement affect Principal Engineers?
It depends on your nationality and funding source. If your home country appears on the USCIS Exchange Visitor Skills List or if your J-1 program is funded by a U.S. government agency or your home government, you may be required to return home for two years before changing to certain other visa categories. Check the USCIS exchange visitor guidance and consult your designated sponsor before accepting an offer.
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