Senior Software Engineer, Rate Limiting and Token Management

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

Job summary

Google is seeking software engineers to help design and operate globally distributed systems at massive scale. The role emphasizes building scheduling, token-based orchestration, and fair-sharing for AI agents, with opportunities to influence architecture across Cloud services.

Candidates should have strong experience in software development, distributed systems, testing, and leadership potential, with exposure to Java or C/C++.

Qualifications

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

Responsibilities

• Design and operate globally distributed systems paths that handle millions of queries across multiple regions.
• Build distributed scheduling, dynamic reservation, and fair-sharing tuned to how LLMs actually behave — token-by-token streaming, bursty agent loops, speculative decoding, and prompt caching.
• Build self-healing systems with solid failover, fast coordination, and the telemetry needed to hit five-nines (99.999%) availability.
• Set the architectural direction for token orchestration and distribution across Cloud.

Skills

Software development

Testing and launching software

Software design and architecture

Distributed systems

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Master's degree or PhD in CS or related field

Tools

Java

C/C++

Job description

Minimum qualifications:

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

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 5 years of experience with data structures and algorithms.
• 1 year of experience in a technical leadership role.
• Experience in one or more of the following: Java, C/C++.
• Experience in Generative AI.

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.

The Agent Cloud initiative is evolving Google Cloud to handle the unique challenges of non-deterministic AI agents and workloads. Our team bridges the gap between traditional Cloud networking and the new agentic ecosystem by leveraging traditional infrastructure systems like Bouncer, QuotaServer, QuotaStore to provide quota and rate limiting infrastructure under Agent Gateway, the central conduit securing and governing agent-to-agent and agent-to-tool communications.

You will be handling critical industry challenges: LLM token quota management and backend overload protection. You will design the infrastructure that prevents runaway AI costs, ensures fair share of LLM capacity, and protects enterprise AI agents from DDoS and abuse.

Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business and industry. We do 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: $174000 - $252000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities:

• Design and operate globally distributed systems paths that handle millions of queries across multiple regions.
• Build distributed scheduling, dynamic reservation, and fair-sharing tuned to how LLMs actually behave — token-by-token streaming, bursty agent loops, speculative decoding, and prompt caching.
• Build self-healing systems with solid failover, fast coordination, and the telemetry needed to hit five-nines (99.999%) availability.
• Set the architectural direction for token orchestration and distribution across Cloud.