Staff Software Engineer, Pixel System Debug Architecture

Mountain View, CA, USA

About the role

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.

In this role, you will drive the end-to-end debug architecture, system observability, and privacy-first diagnostics strategy across next-generation devices. You will serve as the technical authority for full-stack system debuggability across standalone (device-only) and distributed (device + companion phone split-compute) operating modes. You will bridge hardware, firmware, operating systems, inter-device communication, and cloud analytics to build robust triage pipelines, resilient reboot/recovery mechanisms, and high-fidelity trace infrastructure while defining stringent PII protection and data governance policies. You will partner closely with Silicon, Hardware, Firmware, OS, Security, Privacy, Product, and Cloud teams to ensure debug hooks, trace points, and crash resilience are designed into products from day one.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead the cross-functional debug and tracing strategy across all software layers, spanning low-level firmware/real-time operating system (RTOS), host OS (Android/Linux), connectivity stacks, and application layers.
• Design distributed tracing, crash collection, and state synchronization mechanisms.
• Define robust post-mortem crash dumping, watchdog handling, and clean reboot/recovery flows for single-device and multi-device failure scenarios.
• Define and enforce comprehensive PII handling policies, data sanitation, redaction, and compliance frameworks for debug artifacts collected from internal test and production devices.
• Drive requirements for automated log parsers, post-mortem analysis tools, and fleet-wide observability dashboards to accelerate root cause analysis (RCA).

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 5 years of experience with full stack development, across back-end such as Java, Python, Golang, or C++ codebases, and front-end experience including JavaScript or TypeScript, HTML, CSS or equivalent.
• 5 years of experience with software debugging/troubleshooting.
• 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.
• Experience integrating generative AI tools or Large Language Model (LLM) interfaces into workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 8 years of experience in embedded software engineering, system software architecture, or platform debug roles.
• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction.
• 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional, or cross-business projects.
• Experience delivering system debug, tracing, or telemetry architectures for high-volume consumer hardware products.

Pay

US: $207,000 - $300,000 (USD) per year + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits