Senior Staff AI/ML Engineer, Cloud AI Research

Google LLC; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 262,000 - 364,000; Full time

Job summary

Google Mountain View seeks a senior software engineer leading ML systems for agentic AI, bridging research and production at scale. You will shape architectures for high-velocity agent state machines and enterprise deployments.

You will collaborate with executives, guide FDE programs, define horizontal agents, publish breakthroughs, and help Google's AI native pathfinding efforts. The role requires in-person interviews in many cases and deep ML/NLP expertise.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/AI/ML or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years leading large-scale ML system design and ML infrastructure optimization.
• Experience developing autonomous agents, multi-agent workflows, or agentic frameworks.
• Experience designing, pre-training, fine-tuning, or evaluating LLMs and multimodal models.

Responsibilities

• Guide executive leadership and deconstruct enterprise bottlenecks across Google Cloud.
• Architect blueprints for agent state machines and generalizable horizontal agents.
• Lead Forward Deployed Engineering deployments and translate prototypes into enterprise solutions.
• Set architectural goals for agent frameworks and self-improving models.
• Publish breakthroughs at ML conferences and define centralized agentic playbooks.

Skills

Large-scale ML systems

Distributed training

Autonomous agents / multi-agent

LLMs / multimodal models

Agentic frameworks

Tool-use / function-calling

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS / AI / ML or equivalent

Tools

AutoGen

CrewAI

LangGraph

ADK

Job description

corporate_fare Google place Mountain View, CA, USA

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

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience leading large-scale ML system design and optimizing ML infrastructure (e.g., distributed training, model deployment, evaluation).
• Experience developing autonomous agents, multi-agent workflows, or agentic frameworks (e.g., AutoGen, CrewAI, LangGraph, ADK, tool-use/function-calling, or multi-agent).
• Experience designing, pre-training, fine-tuning, or evaluating Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal foundation models.

Preferred qualifications:

• PhD degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical discipline.
• Extensive track record of first-author scientific publication submissions on agents in machine learning and NLP at venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL).
• Demonstrated success operating as a Senior Staff/Principal technical lead orchestrating rapid SWAT, Pathfinding, or Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) environments at an enterprise level.
• Industry-leading expertise in RL, reward modeling, and human/AI preference alignment techniques.
• Deep mastery in developing test-time scaling methods, search-guided decoding, adversarial robustness, and complex alignment guardrails.

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 frontier of AI is moving faster than the traditional enterprise deployment lifecycle can tolerate. Our organization exists to eliminate that \"GenAI Engineering Gap.\" Operating as an AI-Native pathfinding engine at the intersection of foundational research, optimized ML infrastructure and rapid prototyping, we don't simply publish papers; we build the future of AI agents and deploy them at breakneck speed.

In this role, you will guide executive leadership, deconstruct the enterprise bottlenecks across Google Cloud, and architect the overarching blueprints for our agent state machines. You will direct the technical agenda for generalizable horizontal agents and vertical Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) deployments, ensuring that our pathfinding velocity unlocks massive commercial and platform value while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of AI science. 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: $262000 - $364000 (USD) + 25% bonus target + equity + benefits

• Architect the technical framework for high-velocity \"Strike Sprints\", defining the gold standard for intent-driven AI topologies, reflection loops, and advanced agent state machines across the entire organization.
• Serve as the principal technical anchor for massive Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) missions, aligning directly with VP/Director-level partners to translate speculative agentic prototypes into enterprise solutions.
• Set the architectural goals and lead the development of generalizable horizontal agents (e.g., AutoResearch and AutoFounder) that fundamentally alter engineering velocity across Google.
• Direct the research agenda to develop agent architectures, novel planning frameworks, and self-improving foundation models.
• Act as a thought leader across Google, defining centrally governed agentic playbooks, and actively publishing definitive breakthroughs at ML conferences.

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.