Staff Software Engineer, Machine Learning, Google Chat

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of software engineering experience.
• 5 years of experience leading technical strategy and architecting large-scale ML infrastructure and distributed systems.
• Experience managing the full ML development life-cycle, from hypothesis and data collection to fine-tuning, evaluation, and post-production monitoring.
• Experience building, optimizing, and deploying Generative AI systems in production (e.g., Large Language Model (LLMs), RAG, Agentic workflows) with a focus on latency and cost.
• Experience designing scalable database solutions using Cloud Spanner or similar globally distributed databases.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, or a related highly technical field.
• Experience optimizing Inference cost (TPU/GPU) and latency for real-time, user-facing applications (e.g., quantization, caching, speculative decoding).
• Experience in Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures, including vector search, embedding optimization, and semantic retrieval strategies.
• Ability to influence technical roadmaps across organizational boundaries (e.g., partnering with Research/Core ML teams) and translating research into reliable product features.

About the job

Google Cloud’s mission is to make every business successful through AI by combining cutting-edge technology, infrastructure, and talent. AI/ML software engineers in Cloud bridge the gap between pioneering models and a massive product vehicle reaching billions. Our talent density and AI-powered tools drive rapid development, rooted in a culture of empowerment and a bias to action. In this role, you aren’t just building technology; you’re shaping the frontier of enterprise and driving the evolution of advanced models.

In this role, you will be a part of the Chat Back-end team, building and shaping the critical AI infrastructure that powers Google Chat, one of the fastest-growing products within Google Workspace and a platform transforming how billions of people communicate and collaborate.

As a part of a team evolving into an intelligent, agentic collaboration partner for the enterprise, you will contribute to establishing AI as the foundation of enterprise collaboration by architecting Agents in Chat and developing foundational, next-gen GenAI capabilities, including Universal Knowledge Graph, Embeddings, Personalized Assistant, RAG-based Search, AI Overviews, and Agentic Workflows, while bridging the gap between generative AI research and production-grade distributed systems.

AI will change the future of work in profound ways, and our products— Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Sheets, Vids and Meet are at the forefront. From pre-computed summaries for email threads, summaries for meetings, and videos created from a document using lifelike AI avatars, our AI opportunity is huge. Our mission is to meaningfully connect people so they can create, build, and grow together and as part of the team you can build how productivity tools should work 5-10 years into the future. You will work with model builders (Google DeepMind), work with exceptional leaders, and have the ability to impact billions of users across the world.
The US base salary range for this full-time position is $207,000-$300,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.
Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits. Learn more about benefits at Google.
The US base salary range for this full-time position is $207,000-$300,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.The US base salary range for this full-time position is $207,000-$300,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more a