Staff Software Engineer, AAI Research

Google LLC; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Google LLC is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for AI Research in Switzerland, focusing on next-generation agent capabilities and quality feedback loops. You will work on production-ready agentic systems and collaborate with Google Cloud AI researchers to push the state-of-the-art in AI.

The role emphasizes solving complex problems across ML quality, evaluation frameworks, and data engineering, with opportunities to influence product directions and collaborate with global teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience working with Large Language Models (LLMs) and building agents.

Responsibilities

• Execute quality iterations on reference agents identifying potential model or agent framework improvements.
• Source or facilitate creation of datasets for evaluation and training to improve model performance for Cloud customers.
• Design new agentic systems and context engineering algorithms, utilizing existing models and identifying the need for new training/evaluation objectives where necessary.
• Define and implement metrics that correspond to business problems.
• Prototype and iterate on the solution working closely with customers, product management and business development.

Skills

LLMs & agents experience

Python

Token/context/RAG knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Job description

Share Staff Software Engineer, AAI Research

X In most instances, this position requires in-person interviews as part of the hiring process.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience working with Large Language Models (LLMs) and building agents.

Preferred qualifications:

• Solid understanding of essential concepts such as tokens, context, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and function calling.
• Solid understanding of core ML concepts, training algorithms, and best practices for evaluation.
• Strong understanding of data and familiarity with basic statistical analysis concepts (e.g., variance, p-value, bias) and general data science principles.
• Familiarity with running quality interactions, involving understanding business goals, defining technical metrics, implementing evaluation frameworks, designing experiments, analyzing results, performing RCAs, formulating hypotheses, and conducting ablation or live experiments.
• Proficiency in Python.

About the job

Google Cloud's software engineers develop the next-generation technologies that change how billions of users connect, explore, and interact with information and one another. We're looking for engineers who bring fresh ideas from all areas, including information retrieval, distributed computing, large-scale system design, networking and data storage, security, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, UI design and mobile; the list goes on and is growing every day. As a software engineer, you will work on a specific project critical to Google Cloud's needs with opportunities to switch teams and projects as you and our fast-paced business grow and evolve. You will anticipate our customer needs and be empowered to act like an owner, take action and innovate. We need our engineers to be versatile, display leadership qualities and be enthusiastic to take on new problems across the full-stack as we continue to push technology forward.

The agent benchmark engineering team drives the discovery and expansion of next-generation agent capabilities, empowering customers to deploy high-performance AI systems. You will deliver robust, production-ready agentic systems by leading the engineering of the ML quality feedback loop including: hypothesis-driven quality iteration, experimental systems optimization, data engineering for analysis.

The Google Cloud AI Research team addresses AI challenges motivated by Google Cloud’s mission of bringing AI to tech, healthcare, finance, retail and many other industries. We work on a range of unique problems focused on research topics that maximize scientific and real-world impact, aiming to push the state-of-the-art in AI and share findings with the broader research community. We also collaborate with product teams to bring innovations to real-world impact that benefits our customers.

Responsibilities

• Execute quality iterations on reference agents identifying potential model or agent framework improvements.
• Source or facilitate creation of datasets for evaluation and training to improve model performance for Cloud customers.
• Design new agentic systems and context engineering algorithms, utilizing existing models and identifying the need for new training/evaluation objectives where necessary.
• Define and implement metrics that correspond to business problems.
• Prototype and iterate on the solution working closely with customers, product management and business development.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to building a workforce that is representative of the users we serve, creating a culture of belonging, and providing an equal employment opportunity regardless of race, creed, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding), expecting or parents-to-be, criminal histories consistent with legal requirements, or any other basis protected by law. See also Google's EEO Policy , Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal , Belonging at Google , and How we hire .

Google is a global company and, in order to facilitate efficient collaboration and communication globally, English proficiency is a requirement for all roles unless stated otherwise in the job posting.

Equity is granted exclusively and discretionarily by Alphabet Inc. on the basis of an agreement concluded between you and Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is your sole contractual partner with respect to equity grants. GSU grants are not guaranteed, are discretionary, are subject to approval by the Alphabet Inc. board of directors or its delegate, the terms of the relevant Alphabet Inc. stock plan, and your grant agreement. They have no impact on statutory payments. Current or past grants do not confer an acquired right.