Senior System Performance Engineer, XR

Google; United States; On-site; USD 207,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision, life insurance

Retirement benefits: 401(k) with match

Paid time off: 20 days/year

Sick time: 40 hours/year (69 inSeattle

Maternity leave: 28-30 weeks

Baby bonding leave: 18 weeks

13 paid holidays

Job summary

Google is seeking a Senior System Performance Engineer for XR to optimize performance across the Glasses OS stack and hardware. You will identify bottlenecks and implement optimizations to meet tight latency, power, and thermal constraints.

The role covers boot loaders, kernels, IPC, graphics, and sensors, enabling scalable XR experiences. Collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential for delivering high-performance systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of software development experience in C++ or Java.
• 5 years of testing and launching software products.
• 5 years of experience with performance, large-scale systems data analysis, visualization tools, or debugging.
• 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.

Responsibilities

• Architect, guide, and vet systems designs within the scope of the AR Glasses OS team (with a focus on end-to-end performance optimizations), and write product or system development code to solve ambiguous problems.
• Analyze in-depth performance of workloads ranging from high-level application APIs to low-level microXR architecture details.
• Communicate, design, and implement decisions effectively through architecture/design documents and code.
• Mentor and train other team members on architecture and design techniques, coding standards, debugging complex system interactions, and engineering best practices and processes.
• Review code developed by other developers, provide feedback to ensure best practices, and contribute to the overall efficiency and productivity of the engineering team through code, process enhancements, and software development workflow improvements.

Skills

Outcomes ownership

Decision making

Cross-stakeholder influence

Performance optimization

System design leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Master's or PhD preferred

Tools

C++

Java

Perfetto

GDB

ftrace

Job description

Senior System Performance Engineer, XR

Google
San Jose, CA, USA; Seattle, WA, USA

Advanced

Experience owning outcomes and decision making, solving ambiguous problems and influencing stakeholders; deep expertise in domain.

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

In accordance with Washington state law, we are highlighting our comprehensive benefits package, which is available to all eligible US based employees. Benefits for this role include:

• Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
• Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment
• Sick Time: 40 hours/year (increased to 69 hours/year for Seattle) including 5 discretionary sick days per instance
• Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
• Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
• Holidays: 13 paid days per year

Note: By applying to this position you will have an opportunity to share your preferred working location from the following: San Jose, CA, USA; Seattle, WA, USA.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development programming in C++ or Java.
• 5 years of experience testing, and launching software products.
• 5 years of experience with performance, large-scale systems data analysis, visualization tools, or debugging.
• 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 8 years of experience with data structures and algorithms.
• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction.
• 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional, or cross-business projects.
• Experience with system performance benchmarks, methodologies, and profiling/analysis using industry-standard tools (e.g., Perfetto, GDB, ftrace).

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.

XR System Performance Engineer, you will play a critical role in ensuring the performance excellence of XR hardware and software. You will design strategies to identify bottlenecks and implement optimizations that maintain system stability, responsiveness, and efficiency under tight latency, power, and thermal constraints.

You will bring interest and experience in optimizing microXR glasses OS and Glasses Core software stack for the audio and display smart glasses product family. Your interests will span the entire operating systems stack: boot loaders, kernels, IPC mechanisms, graphics, window composition, cameras and sensors, application frameworks, etc.

For decades, the computing revolution has reshaped our world driven by breakthroughs in compute, connectivity, mobile, and now, AI. Google's 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: $207000 - $300000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Architect, guide, and vet systems designs within the scope of the AR Glasses OS team (with a focus on end-to-end performance optimizations), and write product or system development code to solve ambiguous problems.
• Analyze in-depth performance of workloads ranging from high-level application APIs to low-level microXR architecture details.
• Communicate, design, and implement decisions effectively through architecture/design documents and code.
• Mentor and train other team members on architecture and design techniques, coding standards, debugging complex system interactions, and engineering best practices and processes.
• Review code developed by other developers, provide feedback to ensure best practices, and contribute to the overall efficiency and productivity of the engineering team through code, process enhancements, and software development workflow improvements.

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