Senior Software Engineer, Generative AI, Research

About the role

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

• 5 years of experience with software development in C++ and Python.

• Experience with functional/architectural simulators, emulator development, or

compiler backends.

• Experience with computer architecture, instruction set architectures (ISAs),

and hardware-software interaction.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

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

• 5 years of experience with data structures/algorithms.
• 1 year of experience in a technical leadership role.

• Experience developing accessible technologies.

ABOUT THE JOB:

Google's software engineers develop the next-generation technologies that change

how billions of users connect, explore, and interact with information and one

another. Our products need to handle information at massive scale, and extend

well beyond web search. 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’s needs with opportunities to switch teams and projects as

you and our fast-paced business grow and evolve. 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.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will design the next generation of AI

accelerator instruction set architectures (ISAs) to power frontier ML models at

scale. You will architect novel instruction primitives and addressing modes

purpose-built for model dynamics—including MLA, speculative decoding, and

dynamic sparsity. By pioneering AI-driven exploration pipelines, you will

leverage LLMs and autonomous agents to explore vast architectural design spaces,

prototype simulator features, and validate hardware-software trade-offs across

compiler backends and RTL pipelines.

Google Research is building the next generation of intelligent systems for all

Google products. To achieve this, we’re working on projects that utilize the

latest computer science techniques developed by skilled software developers and

research scientists. Google Research teams collaborate closely with other teams

across Google, maintaining the flexibility and versatility required to adapt new

projects and foci that meet the demands of the world's fast-paced business

needs.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills,

experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $174000 - $252000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google

[https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/benefits/].

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design custom instruction sets, addressing modes, and hardware features

targeting emerging frontier model operations (e.g., MLA, speculative

verification, dynamic sparsity, multi-precision numerical formats).

• Deploy agentic orchestration and automated exploration pipelines to

synthesize ISA configurations, generate test kernels, and discover

architectural bottlenecks autonomously.

• Collaborate across ML research, XLA compiler, and RTL teams to ensure new

instructions are seamlessly targetable, efficient to lower, and verify

cleanly across simulation environments.

• Implement instruction-level simulators, golden reference models, and trace

analyzers to measure performance, silicon area, and compiler efficiency.

• Provide rigorous, data-driven architecture proposals to guide

multi-generational silicon roadmaps.