Staff Software Engineer — Cloud Compute Performance

Google Inc.; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 207,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Google's Staff Software Engineer role on the Google Cloud Compute (GCE) Performance team focuses on driving the architectural direction for foundational VM offerings and leading cross-functional initiatives across hardware, kernel, virtualization, and product groups.

The role requires deep experience in large-scale infrastructure, performance optimization, and technical leadership, with a strong track record in complex system design and mentoring engineers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience programming in C++.
• 5 years of experience building and developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or networks, or experience with compute technologies, storage, or hardware architecture.
• Experience with CPU/memory architectures (e.g., x86, ARM) and modern server hardware performance characteristics.
• Experience as an architect or technical lead for multi-year infrastructure initiatives from conception to global deployment.
• Experience in one or more of: OS kernels, hypervisors/virtualization stacks (e.g., KVM, Xen), high-performance networking drivers, storage stacks.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Product Management and cross-functional engineering teams to define the roadmap for GCE’s next-generation VM offerings, translating high-level business goals into concrete technical execution plans.
• Design, architect, and develop scalable technical solutions that optimize VM performance, push the boundaries of hardware efficiency, and maximize infrastructure utilization.
• Lead complex, multi-functional initiatives across hardware, kernel, virtualization, and product teams to drive critical GCE performance initiatives from conception to production.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to GCE’s most critical, high-profile customers. Analyze, benchmark, and optimize their massive-scale workloads to ensure performance exceeds expectations and unlocks business value.
• Shape the technical culture of the broader organization by mentoring junior and senior engineers, conducting design reviews, and establishing engineering best practices for performance analysis.

Skills

C++

Distributed systems

System design

Performance optimization

Technical leadership

Hypervisors

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Google's Staff Software Engineer role on the Google Cloud Compute (GCE) Performance team focuses on driving the architectural direction for foundational VM offerings and leading cross-functional initiatives across hardware, kernel, virtualization, and product groups.

The role requires deep experience in large-scale infrastructure, performance optimization, and technical leadership, with a strong track record in complex system design and mentoring engineers.