Staff Software Engineer, Agentic SDLC Foundations

Google; Town of Montana (WI); On-site; USD 207,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Google is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Agentic SDLC Foundations team in San Jose, CA. The role focuses on driving architecture, evaluation, and quality engineering of Google's developer agent ecosystem, with emphasis on robust HITL guardrails and scalable agent platforms.

Responsibilities include designing production developer agents, HITL gating, and end-to-end evaluation pipelines to raise reliability and reduce regressions across critical engineering workflows.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 5 years of experience testing, and launching software products, and 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.
• 5 years of experience with ML design and ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning).
• Experience integrating generative AI tools or LLM interfaces into workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design and scale production developer agents, establishing patterns for trajectory planning, tool selection, and state recovery.
• Implement intelligent HITL approval gates, intent disambiguation, and graceful execution of actions.
• Architect evaluation pipelines that grade multi-step trajectories, tool-call fidelity, intermediate states, and reasoning paths beyond static input/output matching.
• Establish closed-loop pipelines converting execution failures and human corrections into golden datasets, prompt/tool-schema optimizations, and fine-tuning cycles.
• Curate end-to-end benchmarks replicating complex developer tasks to evaluate agent capabilities and establish standardized KPIs across workflows.

Skills

Software development

ML design

Generative AI

LLM integration

Technical leadership

AGI safety/hitl

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree or PhD

Job description

Staff Software Engineer, Agentic SDLC Foundations

Location: San Jose, CA, USA

Experience Level: Advanced

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.


• 8 years of experience in software development.


• 5 years of experience testing, and launching software products, and 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.


• 5 years of experience with ML design and ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning).


• Experience integrating generative AI tools or LLM interfaces into workflows.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.


• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership capacity (e.g., leading technical roadmaps, designing multi-system architectures, and guiding cross-functional engineering efforts).


• Experience designing and implementing AI/ML evaluations, LLM benchmarking frameworks, or agentic quality measurement pipelines.


• Experience in prompt optimization, LLM fine-tuning, automated dataset generation, and trajectory-based evaluation methodologies.


• Experience taking generative AI solutions or autonomous agent loops from prototype to high-reliability production systems.

About the job

As part of the Agentic SDLC organization in Core, our mission is to transform how engineers build, deploy, and manage software at scale by creating an end-to-end agentic platform for the modern software development lifecycle.

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Agentic SDLC Foundations team, you will serve as the technical lead driving the architecture, evaluation, and quality engineering of Google's developer agent ecosystem. Bridging the gap between experimental generative AI prototypes and dependable, production-grade autonomous systems, you will lead the end-to-end technical strategy for building AI solutions with robust human-in-the-loop (HITL) guardrails. You will establish automated evaluation harnesses, benchmark suites, and methodologies that systematically elevate agent reliability, prevent regressions, and standardize key autonomy metrics across Google's most critical engineering workflows.

The Core team builds the technical foundation behind Google's flagship products. We are owners and advocates for the underlying design elements, developer platforms, product components, and infrastructure at Google. These are the essential building blocks for excellent, safe, and coherent experiences for our users and drive the pace of innovation for every developer. We look across Google's products to build central solutions, break down technical barriers and strengthen existing systems. As the Core team, we have a mandate and a unique opportunity to impact important technical decisions across the company.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Salary: US: $207,000 - $300,000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities:

• Design and scale production developer agents, establishing patterns for trajectory planning, tool selection, and state recovery.


• Implement intelligent HITL approval gates, intent disambiguation, and graceful execution of actions.


• Architect evaluation pipelines that grade multi-step trajectories, tool-call fidelity, intermediate states, and reasoning paths beyond static input/output matching.


• Establish closed-loop pipelines converting execution failures and human corrections into golden datasets, prompt/tool-schema optimizations, and fine-tuning cycles.


• Curate end-to-end benchmarks replicating complex developer tasks to evaluate agent capabilities and establish standardized Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) across workflows.

Information collected and processed as part of your Google Careers profile, and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Google's Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy.

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.

Locations: San Jose, CA, USA

Experience Level: Advanced