Staff ML Software Engineering Manager, Google Display Ads

Google; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 207,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Google Display Ads ML team advances generative retrieval and LLM-driven content intelligence at scale, building models for retrieval, ranking, and pricing that power billions of impressions daily.

This Staff ML Engineer and Tech Lead Manager role defines the technical goals, architects next-gen retrieval systems, and mentors a high-impact team while partnering with Google DeepMind and Google Research to shape the future of digital advertising.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 5 years of experience leading ML design and optimizing ML infrastructure.
• 2 years of experience with GenAI techniques (LLMs, Multi-Modal, Large Vision Models) or GenAI concepts.
• 2 years of experience in a people management or team leadership role.
• Experience in software engineering for recommendation systems or feed ranking architectures.

Responsibilities

• Define Technical Goal and Retrieval Architecture: Set the long-term roadmap and architect high-performance model architectures, embeddings, generative retrieval, and systems at scale.
• Drive AI Innovation: Pioneer the integration of cutting-edge AI and LLMs to deliver improvements in relevance, model performance, and system efficiency.
• Optimize Infrastructure and Compute: Lead training and serving optimization strategies, maximizing TPU/GPU cluster utilization with high-performance production code (e.g., C++).
• Manage and Mentor Engineers: Lead and grow a high-performing team of ML and software engineers, providing technical guidance, driving execution, and elevating engineering excellence.
• Collaborate Across Functions: Partner cross-functionally with ML Research, Product Management, and Infrastructure teams to translate concepts into production-ready systems.

Skills

Software development

ML design

GenAI techniques

People management

Recommendation systems

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering/CS

Job description

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

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 5 years of experience leading ML design and optimizing ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning).
• 2 years of experience with state of the art GenAI techniques (e.g., LLMs, Multi-Modal, Large Vision Models) or with GenAI-related concepts (language modeling, computer vision).
• 2 years of experience in a people management or team leadership role.
• Experience in software engineering for recommendation systems or feed ranking architectures.

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.

About The Job

The Google Display Ads (GDA) Machine Learning (ML) team is at the forefront of revolutionizing digital advertising through cutting-edge machine learning. We develop the core intelligence that powers Google's display ads, building sophisticated models, signal representations, and systems for retrieval, ranking, and pricing. The work is the secret sauce behind optimized bidding and automation, directly impacting the open and free internet.

We leverage state-of-the-art techniques, including the latest advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative retrieval, to train and deploy models at massive scale. Processing billions of training samples daily, utilizing hundreds of thousands of CPUs and TPUs, we address some of the most challenging optimization problems in the industry.

Join us to lead and collaborate with a passionate team of Machine Learning Engineers, Data Scientists, and Software Engineers, and partner with renowned research groups like Google DeepMind, Google Research, and Ads AI. Together, we create tangible value for users, publishers, advertisers, and Google, shaping the future of online advertising.

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer and Tech Lead Manager in Google Display Ads, you will lead the team powering generative retrieval, and LLM-driven content intelligence. You will define the technical goal and architect next-generation retrieval and personalization systems operating at global scale across billions of daily impressions. In this role, you will directly manage and mentor a high-impact engineering team while partnering with Google DeepMind and Google Research to shape the future of digital advertising.

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

Responsibilities

Learn more about benefits at Google .

• Define Technical Goal and Retrieval Architecture: Set the long-term roadmap and architect high-performance model architectures, embeddings, generative retrieval, and systems at scale.
• Drive AI Innovation: Pioneer the integration of cutting-edge AI and LLMs to deliver step-change improvements in relevance, model performance, and system efficiency.
• Optimize Infrastructure and Compute: Lead training and serving optimization strategies, maximizing TPU/GPU cluster utilization with high-performance production code (e.g., C++).
• Manage and Mentor Engineers: Lead and grow a high-performing team of ML and software engineers, providing technical guidance, driving execution, and elevating engineering excellence.
• Collaborate Across Functions: Partner cross-functionally with ML Research, Product Management, and Infrastructure teams to translate advanced concepts into impactful, production-ready systems.

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 .