Senior Software Engineer, Agentic Commerce, Scaling, Serving, Latency

Socket.dev; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 174,000 - 252,000; Full time

Job summary

Google is seeking a Backend Tech Lead for Unified Commerce Platform (UCP) to scale core serving infrastructure and define standard schemas for agent-to-merchant interactions. You’ll tackle end-to-end commerce journeys across Google surfaces featured in the 2026 I/O Keynote, handling backend scaling challenges and reliability across international markets.

The role focuses on designing scalable systems, mentoring engineers, and delivering high-throughput services for billions of interactions

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience with software development in Java or more programming languages.
• 3 years of experience with developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or networks, or experience with compute technologies, storage or hardware architecture.
• 3 years of experience testing, maintaining, or launching software products, and 1 year of experience with software design and architecture.

Responsibilities

• Write and test product or system development code.
• Design and optimize high-throughput serving systems to drive down latency and maintain high service availability, designing and implementing automated circuit breakers, robust event logging, and granular telemetry.
• Build scalable, automated serving paths for enabling and dynamically routing inventory as merchants ramp up traffic, establishing a highly reliable central source of truth for integration health that downstream systems can depend on.
• Architect backend foundations to support UCP's rapid expansion into new international markets and unlock new structured verticals like groceries and lodging.
• Define the technical goal and backend architecture for UCP's core serving infrastructure, mentoring and guiding a team of backend engineers through complex distributed systems scaling challenges.

Skills

Java

Distributed systems

Backend engineering

System design

Testing/launching

Architecture

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience

Master’s degree or PhD in CS or related field

Job description

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.


• 5 years of experience with software development in Java or more programming languages.


• 3 years of experience with developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or networks, or experience with compute technologies, storage or hardware architecture.


• 3 years of experience testing, maintaining, or launching software products, and 1 year of experience with software design and architecture.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or related technical field.


• 5 years of experience with data structures and algorithms.


• 1 year of experience in a technical leadership role.


• Experience developing accessible technologies.

About the job:

Google's software engineers develop the next-generation technologies that change how billions of users connect, explore, and interact with information and one another. Our products need to handle information at massive scale, and extend well beyond web search. 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’s needs with opportunities to switch teams and projects as you and our fast-paced business grow and evolve. 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.

Unified Commerce Platform (UCP) is defining the nascent ecosystem of agentic commerce and its foundations by enabling AI agents and businesses to organically discover, negotiate, and safely transact. As we transition from early partnerships to a mass-market, self-sustaining network, we are looking for a Backend Tech Lead to scale our core serving infrastructure.

In this role, you will define standard schemas for agent-to-merchant interactions and develop end-to-end commerce journeys across agentic Google surfaces featured in Google's 2026 I/O Keynote. In this 0-to-1 space, you will address unique backend scaling challenges to ensure that agent-to-business interactions are reliable, highly performant, and globally accessible.

People shop on Google more than a billion times a day - and the Commerce team is responsible for building the experiences that serve these users. The mission for Google Commerce is to be an essential part of the shopping journey for consumers - from inspiration to to a simple and secure checkout experience - and the best place for retailers/merchants to connect with consumers. We support and partner with the commerce ecosystem, from large retailers to small local merchants, to give them the tools, technology and scale to thrive in today’s digital world. Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $174000 - $252000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities:

• Write and test product or system development code.


• Design and optimize high-throughput serving systems to drive down latency and maintain high service availability, designing and implementing automated circuit breakers, robust event logging, and granular telemetry.


• Build scalable, automated serving paths for enabling and dynamically routing inventory as merchants ramp up traffic, establishing a highly reliable central source of truth for integration health that downstream systems can depend on.


• Architect backend foundations to support UCP's rapid expansion into new international markets and unlock new structured verticals like groceries and lodging.


• Define the technical goal and backend architecture for UCP's core serving infrastructure, mentoring and guiding a team of backend engineers through complex distributed systems scaling challenges.