Spatial XR Hardware Lead Architect

Google•San Jose, CA

2d•$236,000 - $329,000

About The Position

The Spatial XR Hardware Lead Architect is an individual-contributor technical leadership role serving as the principal technical authority for end-to-end hardware architecture of next-generation immersive XR devices. The role owns core architectural definitions and system integration strategies across Google’s immersive product portfolio, specializing in advanced optical systems and high-performance spatial perception pipelines. It balances visual immersion, tracking fidelity, latency, thermal envelopes, weight, cost, industrial design, and power efficiency. The position contributes to Google's direct-to-consumer hardware products and the development of XR devices such as smart glasses and headsets.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Optical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or equivalent practical experience.
8 years of experience in hardware architecture for consumer electronics, including 6 years in system architecture for XR platforms.
8 years of experience working on shipped products focused on imaging or display optics and multi-camera perception suites.
5 years of experience in technical leadership.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, or a related field such as Optics, Sensors, or Audio/DSP.
Experience as Lead System Architect for commercial HMDs, smart glasses, or spatial computing platforms.
Experience architecting spatial computing pipelines (VIO/SLAM, eye-tracking, and passthrough) and sensor constraints.
Expertise in ISP/DSP acceleration, MIPI, temporal synchronization, and split-compute under tight thermal constraints.
Proficiency in optical simulation (Zemax/Code V/LightTools), lens design, polarization, metrology, and display calibration.
Proven ability to align Mechanical, Electrical, Thermal, Silicon, and Perception/Graphics engineering teams.

Responsibilities

Architect end-to-end XR headsets, optimizing trade-offs across field of view, resolution, compute, power, and form factor.
Integrate advanced optical engines and micro-displays, including uOLED, MicroLED, and Fast-LCD, to optimize visual quality, efficiency, and contrast.
Architect IPD adjustment and eye-relief mechanisms for fit and visual performance, and define sensor suites for 6DoF tracking, eye and hand tracking, depth estimation, and video pass-through.
Optimize camera placement, illumination, and low-latency sensor pipelines to maximize tracking accuracy and minimize latency.
Lead alignment across Mechanical, Electrical, Thermal, Silicon, Firmware, Perception, Graphics, Product, and UX teams; mentor engineers to maintain high standards of architectural precision.