Senior Staff Software Engineer, Audio Systems, XR

Google; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 262,000 - 364,000; Full time

Job summary

Google's Audio System Engineering Lead role focuses on acoustics, hardware co-design, and audio tuning across Google's XR glasses and wearables portfolio.

You will own end-to-end audio quality, bridging physical acoustics, embedded DSP software, and ML-driven speech enhancement while leading multidisciplinary teams to solve complex challenges.

The position requires in-person interviews and offers substantial compensation including base salary, bonus, equity, and benefits.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Acoustics, Mechanical Engineering (Acoustics focus), Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of industry experience in audio systems engineering, acoustics, physical acoustic design, audio system tuning, or digital signal processing for consumer electronics or wearable devices.

Responsibilities

• Partner with physical hardware teams to evaluate and select microphones, speakers, amplifiers and optimize microphone array placement/orientation and acoustic chambers under severe spatial constraints.
• Lead and guide the tuning engineering team to define KPIs and optimize playback (DEQ, MBDRC, speaker limiters) and capture (AEC, beamforming, neural wind noise reduction, VAD/AIT) signal processing blocks on resource-constrained embedded architectures.
• Take ultimate accountability for overall audio quality across all XR glasses form factors. Establish standardized quality metrics and audio tuning practices.
• Own and drive the long-term technical roadmap and strategy for XR audio systems. Decompose ambiguous, highly complex audio challenges into structured, multi-team projects.
• Evaluate, select, and manage key components and IP vendors. Drive the integration of advanced audio algorithms (e.g., Acoustic Echo Cancellation, spatial audio, noise suppression) utilizing both in-house research and external vendor technologies.

Skills

Audio systems experience

DSP for consumer electronics

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Acoustics, Mechanical Engineering (Acoustics focus), Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience

Job description

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Acoustics, Mechanical Engineering (Acoustics focus), Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of industry experience in audio systems engineering, acoustics, physical acoustic design, audio system tuning, or digital signal processing for consumer electronics or wearable devices.

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Acoustics, Mechanical Engineering (Acoustics focus), Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of industry experience in audio systems engineering, acoustics, physical acoustic design, audio system tuning, or digital signal processing for consumer electronics or wearable devices.

Preferred qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Acoustics, Electrical Engineering, Audio Signal Processing, or Psychoacoustics.
• Demonstrated experience in acoustic tuning of both playback (EQ, MBDRC, speaker protection, loudness optimization) and capture (AEC, beamforming, noise suppression) production pipelines.
• Proven track record of architecting, tuning, and shipping audio systems for high-volume commercial wearable products (e.g., smart glasses, AR/VR headsets, TWS earbuds, smart speakers, or hearables).
• Deep expertise in physical micro-acoustics: acoustic cavity design, porting, acoustic mesh impedance, transducer characterization, and lumped-element/FEA acoustic modeling.

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.

With your technical expertise you will manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables. You will design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance software solutions.

As the Audio System Engineering Lead, you will serve as the systems architect for acoustics, hardware co-design, and audio tuning across Google's smart glasses and XR wearable portfolio. You will own end-to-end audio quality, both capture and playback, across all operational modes and product form factors.

You will bridge the gap between physical acoustics, embedded DSP software, and machine-learning-driven speech enhancement. You will navigate high ambiguity, define technical roadmaps, establish acoustic tuning methodologies, and align multi-disciplinary engineering teams. This position requires in-person interviews as part of the hiring process.

For decades, the computing revolution has reshaped our world driven by breakthroughs in compute, connectivity, mobile, and now, AI. XR team is at the forefront of the next major leap – the convergence of AI and XR. This is more than just new devices – it's about reimagining how we interact with the world around us. We're building a future where lightweight XR devices like smart glasses and headsets pair with helpful AI to augment human intelligence, offering personalized, conversational, and contextually aware experiences.

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

Responsibilities

Learn more about benefits at Google .

• Partner with physical hardware teams to evaluate and select microphones, speakers, amplifiers and optimize microphone array placement/orientation and acoustic chambers under severe spatial constraints.
• Lead and guide the tuning engineering team to define KPIs and optimize playback (DEQ, MBDRC, speaker limiters) and capture (AEC, beamforming, neural wind noise reduction, VAD/AIT) signal processing blocks on resource-constrained embedded architectures.
• Take ultimate accountability for overall audio quality across all XR glasses form factors. Establish standardized quality metrics and audio tuning practices.
• Own and drive the long-term technical roadmap and strategy for XR audio systems. Decompose ambiguous, highly complex audio challenges into structured, multi-team projects.
• Evaluate, select, and manage key components and IP vendors. Drive the integration of advanced audio algorithms (e.g., Acoustic Echo Cancellation, spatial audio, noise suppression) utilizing both in-house research and external vendor technologies.

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 .