Staff Software Engineer, Google Cloud CISO

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

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

401(k) match

Paid time off

Sick leave

Parental leave

Holidays

Job summary

Google Cloud is seeking engineers to design and implement advanced ML infrastructure and formally verified distributed systems. You will lead architecture across storage, transactions, and query engines, using Rust and verification tools.

We value leadership, cross-team collaboration, and delivering secure, scalable solutions in a fast-paced environment. Eligible US-based employees receive comprehensive benefits and opportunities to work across multiple locations including Seattle.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years in architecting/operating large-scale distributed systems or high-performance DB internals.
• 5 years in ML design and ML infra.
• 5 years developing production-critical Rust systems.
• 3 years in technical leadership, architectural roadmaps.
• Experience with formal specification/verification methods.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of ML solutions and optimize ML infrastructure.
• Define multi-year architectural roadmap for high-efficiency, formally verified systems.
• Lead architecture of distributed transactional systems, storage layers, and query engines in Rust.
• Drive adoption of verification standards and secure tooling across projects.

Skills

8+ years distributed systems

ML design & infra

Rust production systems

Technical leadership

Formal methods

PhD in CS (preferred)

Petabyte-scale storage engines

LSM-tree architectures

Open-source contributions (Rust)

Security/verification standards

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience

PhD in Computer Science (preferred)

Tools

Verus

TLA+

SMT verification

Job description

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

Applicants in San Francisco: Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

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: Sunnyvale, CA, USA; Kirkland, WA, USA; New York, NY, USA; Seattle, WA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA.

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience architecting, implementing, and operating large-scale distributed systems, transactional storage engines, or high-performance database internals.
• 5 years of experience with ML design and ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning).
• 5 years of experience developing production-critical systems in Rust.
• 3 years of experience in technical leadership, setting multi-year architectural roadmaps, and driving cross-organizational technical initiatives.
• Experience with formal specification, formal methods, or verified systems development (e.g., Verus, TLA+, SMT verification, or proof-carrying code).

Preferred qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science with a focus on Distributed Systems, Transactional Storage, Database Engines, or Formal Verification.
• Track record of architecting petabyte-scale storage engines, distributed consensus protocols or low-latency key-value databases.
• Expertise in hardware-conscious algorithmic design, query optimization, LSM-tree architectures, and zero-copy memory pipelines.
• Contributions to the broader systems and Rust open-source ecosystems (e.g., authoring/maintaining widely adopted crates, database engines, or storage primitives).
• Ability to influence executive leadership and drive adoption of transformative security and verification technologies across multiple product areas.
• Research publications in systems and data engineering venues (e.g., OSDI, SOSP, NSDI, VLDB, SIGCOMM, EuroSys).

About The Job

Google Cloud's software engineers develop the next-generation technologies that change how billions of users connect, explore, and interact with information and one another. 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 Cloud's needs with opportunities to switch teams and projects as you and our fast-paced business grow and evolve. You will anticipate our customer needs and be empowered to act like an owner, take action and innovate. 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.

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.

• Lead the design and implementation of solutions in specialized ML areas, optimize ML infrastructure, and guide the development of model optimization and data processing strategies.
• Define the multi-year technical vision and architectural roadmap for high-efficiency, formally verified systems across Google Cloud CISO.
• Lead the end-to-end architecture and implementation of distributed transactional systems, storage layers, and query engines built in Rust and verified with Verus. Formulate verification strategies for complex, multi-component distributed protocols, proving correctness, fault tolerance, and data integrity under arbitrary failure modes.
• Lead initiatives to replace bug-prone, resource-heavy legacy components with formally verified, resource-efficient alternatives across internal and open-source infrastructure. Partner with VP-level and Principal engineering leadership to establish organization-wide verification standards, security baselines, and developer tooling.

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.