System Engineer - Humanoid (human)

Note: By applying to this position you will have an opportunity to share your preferred working location from the following:
Zürich, Switzerland; New York, NY, USA
.
Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 7 years of experience with full stack development, across back-end such as Java, Python, GO, or C++ codebases, and front-end experience including JavaScript or TypeScript, HTML, CSS or equivalent.
• 5 years of experience with design and architecture; and testing/launching software products.
• 3 years of experience in performance analysis including large-scale distributed systems, machine learning optimization and performance optimization.
• Experience in machine learning and performance optimization.

Preferred qualifications:

• Deep understanding of performance optimization within a constrained environment.
• Familiarity with how AI-driven signals and ML models translate into retail-specific business value and user-facing improvements.
• Ability to synthesize complex datasets and various performance metrics into actionable strategic insights and clear technical roadmaps.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and "connect the dots" across various product areas to build a cohesive, long-term vision for retail advertising.
• Ability to balance trade-offs between automated value delivery and system limitations.
• Proven track record of leading complex, multi-disciplinary projects from conception to execution, and ability to influence and align stakeholders across engineering, product, and sales.

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.

As we enter the age of AI transformation on search, we have a need to improve the user understanding, advertiser intent and LTV value definition to power automated value delivery for retailers.

Google Ads is helping power the open internet with the best technology that connects and creates value for people, publishers, advertisers, and Google. We’re made up of multiple teams, building Google’s Advertising products including search, display, shopping, travel and video advertising, as well as analytics. Our teams create trusted experiences between people and businesses with useful ads. We help grow businesses of all sizes from small businesses, to large brands, to YouTube creators, with effective advertiser tools that deliver measurable results. We also enable Google to engage with customers at scale.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $262000 - $364000 (USD) + 25% bonus target + equity + benefits

Responsibilities
Learn more about benefits at Google .

• Own the technical and strategic roadmap for retail signals, goals and optimization.
• Improve the user understanding, advertiser intent and LTV value definition to power automated value delivery for retailers.
• Work with PMs and executives, identify the right areas of improvements, making sure all the areas come together. For example, how we consolidate different tools for value adjustments and use consistently across predictions and optimization.
• Work with senior cross-product area partners to leverage their expertise and infrastructure.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form .

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience with software development in Python.
• 3 years of experience building training and evaluation datasets for Generative AI models.
• 3 years of experience operating within the core technology stack of modern Large Language Models (LLMs).
• 3 years of experience in machine learning research or machine learning infrastructure.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 5 years of experience with data structures and algorithms.
• 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional, or cross-business projects.
• Experience in combinatorial optimization or other areas of operations research.
• Experience in reinforcement learning.

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.

The Operations Research group builds technology to solve optimization problems for the world, Alphabet, and Google. You will join a team that works at the intersection of Operations Research and Gemini, primarily focused on using optimization techniques to improve Gemini. You will either already have a working knowledge of optimization techniques.

Google Research addresses challenges that define the technology of today and tomorrow. From conducting fundamental research to influencing product development, our research teams have the opportunity to impact technology used by billions of people every day.

Our teams aspire to make discoveries that impact everyone, and core to our approach is sharing our research and tools to fuel progress in the field -- we publish regularly in academic journals, release projects as open source, and apply research to Google products.

Responsibilities

• Build evaluation datasets, autoraters, and reward functions to assess and improve Gemini capabilities.
• Develop user simulators to test and refine model interactions.
• Construct agentic harnesses that enable models to interface with optimization solvers.
• Partner with product areas to integrate optimization solvers into their Generative AI offerings.
• Identify model capability gaps and devise concrete technical solutions.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form .

You want to help build Europe's resilience. You want to protect people and critical infrastructure - ultimately saving the lives of thousands. You want to work at the frontier of high-performance autonomous systems.

YOUR MISSION
Join us at CDDS to build the software platform that connects our next-generation interceptor drones with sensors and operators.

We Are Looking For An All-around Software Developer To

• build the software platform that ties multiple systems together - including radar and external sensors - to give operators a single live picture
• integrate our drones with third-party systems, ensuring they work seamlessly with our products
• develop fleet-management tooling to monitor, configure, and coordinate drones in the field

We move at a high pace and priorities shift quickly — you should be comfortable building in an environment where the problem can change underneath you.

Tasks

What You Might Work On

• Build high-quality, maintainable Python services and APIs for the ground segment
• Integrating our system with third-party platforms by developing plugins and real-time data interfaces
• Designing fleet-management and provisioning tooling for the interceptor drone fleet
• Monitoring and tuning system performance

Requirements
REQUIRED

• MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, with a strong academic record. ETH Zürich or an equivalent university is preferred.
• Strong Python programming skills
• At least 3 years of relevant professional experience
• Experience with Linux-based development environments
• Understanding of software security fundamentals

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience integrating with command and control (C2) systems
• Experience working with radar feeds or other external sensors
• Knowledge of networking protocols and secure communication
• Experience with bash CLI

Benefits

• Direct impact on a mission-critical technology shaping Europe's security landscape
• Fast-moving startup environment with high ownership
• Work with a highly technical, ambitious, and hands-on team
• Real-world testing, deployments, and customer demonstrations
• Attractive compensation
• Location: Hardbrucke (Zurich), on-site
• Start date: October, November
• Environment: Rapidly growing deep-tech startup, high-impact mission

Looking for a role that allows you to architect an engine serving billions of queries per month at sub-second latency? We have that!

Zerolook is changing how air travel is priced by offering an alternative to traditional airfare pricing engines. At the core of the offering is a large-scale infrastructure capable of serving the billions of requests generated by people and AI agents. As an early hire, you get to define the architecture at the center of it all.

Tasks

• System Architecture:
  Define the architecture and design, and lead the implementation of a large-scale, high-performance, cost effective infrastructure.

• Enterprise-class application:
  own the KPIs for non-functional requirements, including security, scalability, availability, business continuity, and disaster recovery.

• Technical Leadership:
  set standards and best practices, and hire, lead and mentor other engineers as the team grows.

• Strategic Collaboration:
  Partner alongside the founders with key organizations in the industry in developing the core Zerolook offering.

Requirements

• Education:
  Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science or related field.

• Large scale applications:
  experience building applications serving over 1K QPS at latencies on the order of 1 sec

• Broad Software Architecture experience:
  5+ years in leading the design, implementation, and deployment of enterprise class applications.

• Engineering Foundation:
  extensive knowledge of Java and related Enterprise technologies and frameworks, competency in C++, experience with containerization and orchestration

• Startup DNA:
  Comfortable with the "0 to 1" phase-ambiguity, fast iteration, and taking extreme ownership.

Bonus Requirements

• Travel Tech:
  Previous experience with OTAs, metasearch, or GDS/NDC integration is a significant plus**.**

• Frameworks:
  experience with Helidon SE, and / or Drogon C++ Web Framework

• Education:
  Ph.D. in Computer Science

Benefits

Compensation

CHF 140.000-150.000 + significant stock options

If you are ready to build the infrastructure that will power the next generation of travel search, we want to hear from you.