Staff Software Engineer, Backend Infrastructure and Rapid Prototyping, Google Labs

Google•Cambridge, MA

1d•$207,000 - $300,000

About The Position

Google Labs incubates early-stage technologies that may shape the future of computing and AI. Its small, autonomous, product-driven teams move quickly to build new products and capabilities. Within Labs, the Language Applications organization builds foundational platforms and consumer products, including NotebookLM, Google AI Studio, and the Gemini API. This role focuses on synthetic media—including audio, video, dynamic code, and interactive visual artifacts—and on building foundational systems that make generative models usable in instant, intuitive, and reliable experiences. The engineer will design and deliver large-scale software and resilient distributed backend infrastructure, lead work in specialized machine-learning areas, and prototype cross-stack generative AI features. The position calls for technical leadership, collaboration across teams, and the ability to guide projects from architecture through deployment and maintenance.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or equivalent practical experience.
8 years of experience in software development.
5 years of experience testing and launching software products, and 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.
5 years of experience with speech/audio, reinforcement learning, ML infrastructure, or another specialized ML field.
5 years of experience leading ML design, optimizing end-to-end ML (deployment, evaluation, tuning), and integrating generative AI tools or Large Language Model (LLM) interfaces.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
8 years of experience with advanced data structures and algorithms.
3 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction.
3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional or cross-business projects.
Experience building distributed queueing infrastructure or rapidly prototyping cross-stack generative AI applications.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance large-scale software solutions and resilient distributed backend infrastructure.
Provide technical leadership on generative media projects, managing project priorities, deadlines, and architectural deliverables.
Facilitate alignment and clarity across teams on goals, outcomes, and timelines, while influencing and coaching a distributed team of engineers.
Lead the design and implementation of solutions in specialized ML areas, optimize ML infrastructure, and guide model optimization and data processing strategies.
Prototype innovative cross-stack features and clean APIs that bridge core multimodal generation pipelines with interactive user interfaces.