He joined the Department of Computer Science at Wellesley College as an assistant professor in 1980.
In 1984–1985 he was a visiting lecturer in Computer Science at Harvard University.
In 2018, he joined Reed College as a visiting professor of computer science.
In 2020, he joined Willamette University as the Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor.
Roberts has written several introductory computer science textbooks, including Roberts has several notable awards in computer science.