Senior Staff Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure, Google Cloud, Applied AI at Google
Irvine, CA
$262,000–$365,000from the description
Jul 13, 2026
Irvine, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role focuses on designing and operating distributed, high-performance infrastructure for agentic AI systems within Google Cloud's Applied AI division. The engineer will take experimental models into production, maintain reliability and low latency at enterprise scale, and close product gaps by working directly from customer feedback. It suits a seasoned systems engineer with strong AI and distributed computing experience, comfortable owning the full technical stack from low-level optimizations to application logic.
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 3 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 70 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 30–110
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 title in the posting reads 'Senior Staff Software Engineer' but the body consistently frames the role as 'Staff Software Engineer'; the advertised level is treated as Staff accordingly.
The posting lists four possible work locations (Sunnyvale CA, Irvine CA, Kirkland WA, Seattle WA); Sunnyvale/San Jose CBSA is used as the primary location since it is listed first.
The Bachelor's degree requirement is satisfied by 'equivalent practical experience,' so no minimum degree is hard-gated.
Master's or PhD is listed under Preferred qualifications only.
Compensation includes a 25% bonus target and equity in addition to the stated $262,000–$365,000 base salary range.
The evaluation frameworks skill (A/B testing, shadow deployment, online learning) appears under Preferred qualifications; the named options are treated as interchangeable alternatives within that single preferred requirement.
Vertex AI is mentioned in the product portfolio description (Cloud Applied AI context), not in a requirements section, so it is marked preferred.
Read the full posting
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