Staff Software Engineer, Youtube Ads Surfaces and Experiences at Google
Mountain View, CA
$207,000–$301,000from the description
Jul 10, 2026
Mountain View, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A staff-level engineering role focused on shaping the long-term technical direction of YouTube Ads surfaces and experiences. The work centers on driving format optimizations, integrating AI capabilities, and improving system scalability and reliability across an organization of 100+ engineers. It suits a seasoned engineer with a background in ML infrastructure, GenAI techniques, and cross-functional technical leadership who is comfortable making high-stakes architectural decisions with minimal oversight.
Staff level · 8+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 6 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 560 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 420–880
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The role sits at the intersection of software engineering and ML/AI; alt SOC 15-2051 (Data Scientists) is plausible given the heavy ML infrastructure and GenAI requirements, but the primary framing is engineering strategy and software development, so 15-1252 was chosen.
The JD requires a Bachelor's degree 'or equivalent practical experience', so the degree requirement is set to None per schema rules.
The 7-year ML requirement covers technical project strategy, ML design, and ML infrastructure (model deployment, evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine-tuning) — these are treated as a single gated requirement rather than split into separate skills, as the JD bundles them in one bullet.
Experience working within Ads is listed as a minimum qualification but names no specific technology or tool, so it is omitted from the skills list per schema rules.
The $207,000–$301,000 base salary range is stated explicitly; the posting also mentions a 20% bonus target and equity, which are not captured in the comp fields.
Preferred qualifications include a Master's or PhD, leading distributed systems or full-stack teams, and communication/collaboration skills — these are marked preferred and soft skills are omitted.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): software development, ML design, software architecture, full stack engineering.
Read the full posting
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