Senior Software Engineer, BigQuery Vector Search

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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.

BigQuery is a fully managed and highly-scalable data warehouse, which is offered as part of Google Cloud. It continues to be a strategic differentiator driving Google Cloud growth.

BigQuery Vector Search is at the forefront of the AI revolution in BigQuery. This functionality, also referred to as approximate nearest-neighbor search, is key to empowering numerous new data and AI use cases such as semantic search, similarity detection, identity resolution and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with a Large Language Model (LLM).

In this role, you will drive the evolution of Vector Search, making it faster, more efficient, and intuitively accessible via SQL. From deep query optimization to designing user-centric interfaces, your code will directly empower developers to build the next generation of AI apps.

Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business and industry. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology, and tools that help developers build more sustainably. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $166,000-$244,000 + 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

Design and implement components of the system (e.g., SQL interface, indexing pipeline, query planner optimizations, etc.).
Drive technical discussions within the team, across the wider BigQuery team, and with other organizations.
Participate in discussions with product managers and customers to understand requirements and map those to technical requirements.
Promote engineering excellence within the team.

Minimum qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
5 years of experience with software development in one or more programming languages.
3 years of experience with developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or networks, or experience with compute technologies, storage or hardware architecture.
Experience with SQL and relational databases.
Experience programming in C++ or Java.

Preferred qualifications:

Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or related technical field.
Experience building a query processing engine for a SQL RDBMS.
Experience with high availability designs, and parallel/horizontal scale-out database architectures.
Understanding of enterprise workloads, with a passion for delighting enterprise customers, vector search, LLM, and agents.
Proficiency in Python programming.
Ability to promote product excellence and collaboration and to think in a strategic manner to develop innovative products.