Staff Software Engineer, Google Cloud Compute, Performance
Seattle, WA, USA · Staff · Full-time · Posted Oct 14, 2026
- Experience
- 8 years programming in C++; 5 years in large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or networks, or compute technologies, storage, or hardware architecture; other experience requirements are listed without years.
- Education
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
About the job
Provides technical leadership and architectural direction for Google Cloud Compute virtual machines, driving performance and hardware efficiency improvements and advising major customers on workload optimization.
What you'll do
- Define the roadmap and technical execution plans for next-generation VM offerings with Product Management and engineering teams.
- Architect and lead performance initiatives spanning hardware, kernels, virtualization, and product teams, from conception to production.
- Benchmark and optimize customer workloads; mentor engineers and establish performance-analysis practices.
What they ask for
- 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 and server hardware performance; leading multi-year infrastructure initiatives; and at least one of OS kernels, hypervisors/virtualization stacks, networking drivers, or storage stacks.
Nice to have
- Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
- 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role; experience with data structures and algorithms or customer-facing performance optimization.
Pay
$207000 - $300000 (USD) base salary
Tools
C++, x86, ARM, KVM, Xen
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