Senior Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure Spanner Team

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

Job summary

Google LLC in Sunnyvale, CA, is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer for the Infrastructure Spanner Team. The role focuses on design, architecture, and leading large-scale distributed systems initiatives, with emphasis on applying AI-powered methods to accelerate development.

Qualifications include a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, 5 years in design/architecture, and expertise in building scalable infrastructure.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience with design and architecture; and testing or launching software products.
• Experience building and developing large-scale infrastructure or distributed systems.
• Experienced in innovating the development process using AI.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for Spanner's next-gen Batch I/O interface, including Database branching and bulk processing, and own the architectural bridge between Serving and other Spanner subsystems.
• Lead the modernization of Spanner Serving using AI-assisted development (e.g., coding agents, LLM-driven code migration and refactoring) to reduce technical debt and operational toil without compromising correctness or availability.
• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered tools, agents, and automated workflows that speed up the team's development lifecycle, including code review, testing, verification, debugging, and incident response.
• Define AI-first engineering practices for the team: find the use cases with the biggest payoff and reviewing the work of AI agents, and measure the effect on speed and quality.
• Influence and mentor engineers across Spanner, growing their technical depth and AI fluency, and share reusable patterns with partner teams across Google.

Skills

Design & architecture

Large-scale systems

Distributed systems

AI-driven development

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Job description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure Spanner Team

Share Senior Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure Spanner Team

corporate_fare Google place Sunnyvale, CA, USA

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

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience with design and architecture; and testing or launching software products.
• Experience building and developing large-scale infrastructure or distributed systems.
• Experienced in innovating the development process using AI.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
  
• 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional, or cross-business projects.
• Deep understanding of database engine internals, query execution/query optimization, or distributed data storage.

About the job

Spanner is a globally-replicated, scalable SQL-aware database that provides strong consistency guarantees and high availability. It is a key asset of Google’s external and internal product portfolio of database services. See go/spanner-roadmap for the latest Spanner roadmap.

Spanner Serving manages the essential components and servers where data are hosted, manipulated, served, and distributed. This is the core of Spanner and a critical part for correctness, availability and scalability of Spanner databases across the globe.

We are also using AI to transform both Spanner and the way we build it. We apply coding agents and Large Language Model (LLM)-based tools to speed up migrations, refactoring, testing, and verification across a large, mature, correctness-critical code base, and we are building AI-first workflows that measurably increase our productivity while keeping Spanner's high bar for correctness and availability.

About the job

Spanner is a globally-replicated, scalable SQL-aware database that provides strong consistency guarantees and high availability. It is a key asset of Google’s external and internal product portfolio of database services. See go/spanner-roadmap for the latest Spanner roadmap.

Spanner Serving manages the essential components and servers where data are hosted, manipulated, served, and distributed. This is the core of Spanner and a critical part for correctness, availability and scalability of Spanner databases across the globe.

We are also using AI to transform both Spanner and the way we build it. We apply coding agents and Large Language Model (LLM)-based tools to speed up migrations, refactoring, testing, and verification across a large, mature, correctness-critical code base, and we are building AI-first workflows that measurably increase our productivity while keeping Spanner's high bar for correctness and availability.

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
Learn more about benefits at Google .

• Set the technical direction for Spanner's next-gen Batch I/O interface, including Database branching and bulk processing, and own the architectural bridge between Serving and other Spanner subsystems.
• Lead the modernization of Spanner Serving using AI-assisted development (e.g., coding agents, LLM-driven code migration and refactoring) to reduce technical debt and operational toil without compromising correctness or availability.
• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered tools, agents, and automated workflows that speed up the team's development lifecycle, including code review, testing, verification, debugging, and incident response.
• Define AI-first engineering practices for the team: find the use cases with the biggest payoff and reviewing the work of AI agents, and measure the effect on speed and quality.
• Influence and mentor engineers across Spanner, growing their technical depth and AI fluency, and share reusable patterns with partner teams across Google.

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.

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