Senior Staff Machine Learning Software Engineer, Search Ranking

Company: Google
Location: Mountain View
Posted on: April 2, 2026

Job Description:

Minimum qualifications: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience. 8 years of experience with software development in one or more programming languages. 7 years of experience testing, maintaining or launching software products, and 1 year of experience with software design and architecture. 7 years of experience with AI/ML algorithms and tools, deep learning and AI/ML modeling. Experience building and deploying recommendation systems models (e.g., retrieval, prediction, ranking, personalization, search quality, embedding) in production. Preferred qualifications: Master degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related field. 8 years of experience with data structures and algorithms and large language model applications. 5 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction. Experience developing algorithms (e.g., ranking, recommendations, prediction, search quality, personalization) and software that generates suggestions based on various input and output goals. Experience in successfully applying machine learning approaches to real-world content problems, and excellent programming skills in Python. Experience in quality working on content recommendation or user personalization problems. 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. With your technical expertise you will manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables. You will design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance software solutions. The Feed Recommendation team's mission is to connect users with the world's most relevant and engaging content. We own the end-to-end experience for Google's feed products, from building a deep understanding of the content corpus to developing the retrieval, ranking, and personalization models that power what billion users see every day. In this role, your primary mission will be to identify technical challenges and propose innovations in our feed retrieval, ranking, quality and p13n work streams, and drive end-to-end solutions. You will develop and deploy models, including LLMs and multi-modal systems, to analyze and recommend content at a massive scale. 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. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $262,000-$365,000 bonus equity benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits. Learn more about benefits at Google . Responsibilities Be responsible for driving research and development for our core content, retrieval and ranking models, which form the foundation of our feed recommendation systems. You will manage the immense challenges of end-to-end Discover feed recommendations across content, ranking, retrieval and p13n. Conduct applied research on novel modeling techniques to solve concrete challenges in content understanding, such as identifying nuanced topics, assessing content quality, and understanding UGC. Collaborate with partner teams and cross-functional partners to integrate the content signals into production retrieval, ranking, and personalization systems. Advance the in key recommendation domains in retrieval, ranking and content understanding.

Keywords: Google, Citrus Heights , Senior Staff Machine Learning Software Engineer, Search Ranking, IT / Software / Systems , Mountain View, California