Streaming giant Roku has opened a base in central Manchester.
Roku is America鈥檚 most popular TV streaming platform by hours streamed, serving more than 56 million active accounts worldwide.
Its CEO Anthony Wood was born in Manchester. The office, its fourth in the UK, follows London, Cambridge and Cardiff.
Located in Bruntwood SciTech鈥檚 No.1 Circle Square off Oxford Road, Roku鈥檚 Manchester team will now be recruiting for 50+ engineering roles before the end of 2022, as well as offering three-month paid internships to the region鈥檚 budding software engineers.
The strategic move to the northern tech capital positions Roku next to the University of Manchester.
The initial phase of recruitment will focus on product engineers who will work with Roku TV brand partners on developing Roku TV models, powered by the Roku OS.
Currently, Roku TV models are available in the UK from brands like TCL and Hisense, while in the US Roku has been the No.1 selling smart TV operating system for the last two years.
鈥淩oku was founded on the belief that all TV will be streamed. We are looking for the right talent to continue to change how the world watches television,鈥� said Alastair McGeoch, director of software engineering.聽
鈥淢anchester is a city steeped in engineering history and famed for its cultural impact on the world, so it is a natural fit for us. In Manchester, we will primarily focus on recruiting software engineering roles in 2022, with the ambition to increase the size of our team there in the next four years.聽
鈥淢anchester is Roku鈥檚 fourth UK office, following London, Cambridge and Cardiff and has an incredible talent pool. Roku is proud to be joining the city鈥檚 newest neighbourhood and growing tech sector.鈥�
Tim Newns, chief executive of MIDAS, Greater Manchester鈥檚 Inward Investment Agency, said: 鈥淚t is incredibly exciting to have one of the world鈥檚 leading content streaming technology companies investing at such scale in Manchester.聽
鈥淭hey join a wider software supply chain around content streaming that includes the likes of BBC iPlayer and Disney Streaming Services (formerly Cake Solutions) which makes this a growing area of specialism for the city region and at a time of extreme growth in that sector globally.聽
鈥淲e鈥檙e looking forward to seeing how Roku can leverage Greater Manchester鈥檚 innovation strengths in the technology and media sectors, alongside the existing ecosystem and academia, to take their product offering on to the next level.鈥�