Engineering Manager, Play Search Quality

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 8 years of experience in software development.
  
• 5 years of experience with one or more of the following: Speech/audio (e.g., technology duplicating and responding to the human voice), reinforcement learning (e.g., sequential decision making), ML infrastructure, or specialization in another ML field.
  
• 5 years of experience leading ML design and optimizing ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning).
  
• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role.
• 2 years of experience in a people management or team leadership role.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
  
• 3 years of experience leading teams that have successfully shipped large-scale ML models and systems to production.
• 3 years of experience in information retrieval, search quality, and ranking systems.
• Experience working on products serving hundreds of millions or billions of users.
• Experience in applying LLM, NLP, and GenAI to consumer-facing products.
• Ability to set a multi-year technical direction and road map, and lead a team to execute on it.

About the job

Like Google's own ambitions, the work of a Software Engineer goes beyond just Search. Software Engineering Managers have not only the technical expertise to take on and provide technical leadership to major projects, but also manage a team of Engineers. You not only optimize your own code but make sure Engineers are able to optimize theirs. As a Software Engineering Manager you manage your project goals, contribute to product strategy and help develop your team. Teams work all across the company, in areas such as information retrieval, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, distributed computing, large-scale system design, networking, security, data compression, user interface design; the list goes on and is growing every day. Operating with scale and speed, our exceptional software engineers are just getting started -- and as a manager, you guide the way.

With technical and leadership expertise, you manage engineers across multiple teams and locations, a large product budget and oversee the deployment of large-scale projects across multiple sites internationally.

Google Play offers music, movies, books, apps and games for devices, powered by the cloud. It syncs across devices and on the web. As part of the Android and Mobile team, Googlers working on Google Play do everything from engineering our backend systems, to shaping product strategy, to forming great content partnerships. They make it possible for people to do things like buy an ebook or song on their Android phone, then have it instantly available on their laptop. The Google Play team enhances the Android ecosystem by giving developers and partners a premium store where they can reach millions of users.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $197,000-$291,000 + 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

• Set the technical direction and strategic road map.
  
• Drive Core ML Innovation and lead GenAI Integration in Play Search.
  
• Collaborate cross-functionally to align on goals, priorities, and execution.
  
• Influence Partner Teams to contribute to the broader strategy across Play.
  
• Own Measurement and Impact to ensure delivery of a relevant and trustworthy experience to users.