Principal Engineer, Search Content Platform

Google Search Content Platform (SCP) is seeking a strong senior technical leader (Principal Engineer) responsible for driving the technical vision, strategy, and multi-year road maps that transform Google’s content infrastructure into an AI-first platform. This role is pivotal in enabling Search to "answer, explore, and address anything" by delivering the world’s most comprehensive and trustworthy knowledge source to power Gemini and Search products like AI Mode (“AIM”) and AI Overviews (“AIO”).

The SCP organization aims to unify and streamline how Google Search accesses and utilizes content. It works to acquire, understand, connect, and provide coherent access to a vast range of content types and sources. This includes: structured data (like the knowledge graph); semi-structured content (e.g. passages, lists); unstructured content (from the web); multi-modal content (images, videos); third-party feeds; and user-Generated Content.

Essentially, SCP is building the infrastructure and services to move Search from a fragmented ecosystem of disparate data sources to an organized, more standardized platform. This allows Search feature developers to more easily find, use, and integrate high-quality content into user experiences, especially those powered by AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

This role will require collaborating with many internal stakeholders across several Search teams – Search Verticals and International, Search Intelligence, and Search Platforms. Further, the role will often require frequent collaboration and influence across other parts of Google beyond Search, like Google DeepMind, Shopping, Ads, Maps, and more. Your opinionated technical leadership will ensure that our foundational layers are robust, seamless, and primed to accelerate Google's AI-first content strategy.

In Google Search, we're reimagining what it means to search for information – any way and anywhere. To do that, we need to solve complex engineering challenges and expand our infrastructure, while maintaining a universally accessible and useful experience that people around the world rely on. In joining the Search team, you'll have an opportunity to make an impact on billions of people globally.

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

US: $307000 - $428000 (USD) + 30% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Strategize and harden end-to-end Search Content Platform capabilities, ensuring the technical viability and scalability of foundational layers.
• Architect and optimize data acquisition and ingestion pipelines, seamlessly bridging the gap into advanced retrieval and serving environments.
• Drive critical, opinionated infrastructure decisions to mature early-stage platform components into highly reliable systems and technical strategy across the various engineering teams within SCP.
  
• Strategic thought leadership in identifying the problems worth solving and finding the technical insights to solve the problem.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or other relevant engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• 15 years of experience in software engineering
• Experience tuning and applying large language models (LLMs)
• Experience with leadership responsibility over technical areas within a company or product area

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering
• Experience with technical and product innovation supporting a cross-functional engineering environment
• Ability to balance detailed, technical guidance with “big picture” strategy and enabling teams to deliver products that are effective
• Technically proficient, with the ability to understand all of the areas within Search including Search Content Platform and products like AI Mode and AI Overviews
• Strong organization and prioritization skills along with excellent written and verbal communication skills

Note: By applying to this position you will have an opportunity to share your preferred working location from the following: Mountain View, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA.