Principal Engineer, Infrastructure Trust

Google; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 307,000 - 427,000; Full time

Job summary

Google is seeking a highly independent Principal Engineer to architect resilient distributed platforms and bridge physical and logical security across Google's core infrastructure. You will guide technical strategies to guarantee system integrity while enabling untrusted environments to host critical assets, including AI models, and protecting third‑party data.

Grounded in foundational security, you will influence cross‑functional partners, navigate executive stakeholders, and lead teams through

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent practical experience.
• 15 years of experience as a software engineering leader.
• Experience with technical innovation within cross-functional engineering environments.
• Experience in data center security, networking security, hardware security, or operating system security.
• Preferred: master’s/PhD in CS and proven inter-team leadership.

Responsibilities

• Lead the paradigm shift to securely deploy workloads in untrusted environments.
• Define isolation and verification frameworks for safe execution at scale.
• Design defensive architectures addressing sophisticated AI-driven threats.
• Address multi-cloud risks and secure AI training/inference infrastructure.
• Guide and structure a team of technical leads across security domains.

Skills

Software engineering leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Security architecture

Data center security

Hardware security

Security in untrusted environments

Executive stakeholder influence

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science

Job description

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent practical experience.
• 15 years of experience as a software engineering leader.
• Experience with technical innovation within cross-functional engineering environments.
• Experience in data center security, networking security, hardware security, or operating system security.

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent practical experience.
• 15 years of experience as a software engineering leader.
• Experience with technical innovation within cross-functional engineering environments.
• Experience in data center security, networking security, hardware security, or operating system security.

Preferred qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science or related field.
• Proven track record of inter-team/cross-functional leadership, with the ability to influence C-level stakeholders and align technical roadmaps across product groups.
• Deep expertise in hardware vulnerabilities and physical data center security.
• Demonstrated success in leading initiatives around confidential compute, physical-logical boundaries, and securing third-party/on-premise environments.
• Strong awareness of industry trends in AI infrastructure threats and how to apply guardrails for AI agents at an infrastructure level.
• Credibility as an engineering leader who can guide and structure a team of technical leads across broad and complex security domains.

About The Job

The Infrastructure Trust team is seeking a highly independent and visionary Principal Engineer to architect resilient distributed platforms and bridge the gap between physical and logical security. In this role, you will lead technical strategies to ensure the absolute integrity of our systems, transforming Google's core infrastructure. You will help Google leverage untrusted environments to host critical assets including AI models, and also enable Google to host and protect third party’s models and customer data safely and privately. Grounded in deep foundational security principles, you will bring the credibility and executive presence required to navigate complex cross-organizational boundaries, influence key stakeholders, and serve as a technical bridge across Google's broader engineering units. You will creatively address expanding industry challenges, including securing multi-cloud workloads, mitigating AI infrastructure threats, and establishing guardrails for AI agents, while acting as a technical bridge across Google's broader engineering organizations.

Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business and industry. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology, and tools that help developers build more sustainably. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $307000 - $427000 (USD) + 30% bonus target + equity + benefits

Responsibilities

• Lead the paradigm shift to securely deploy workloads in untrusted environments.
• Define technical isolation and verification frameworks to safely execute untrusted code at scale including guiding creation of technical isolation solutions for jobs running on a single machine, within a data center, or across data centers.
• Design defensive architectures responsive to sophisticated threats, specifically addressing the offensive use of AI by both external and internal actors.
• Address emerging multi-cloud workload risks, secure AI training/inference infrastructure, and establish safe execution guardrails for autonomous AI agents.
• Design defensive architectures responsive to sophisticated threats, specifically addressing the offensive use of AI by both external and internal actors.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form.