Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• 15 years of software engineering experience, including technical leadership
• Engineering experience in Machine Learning with a focus in recommendations and computer vision/image processing
• Experience in computer science, data structures, algorithms, and software design

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science or related field
• Experience with full-stack backend software development and implementation of sustainable, well-designed systems and data pipelines, with production launch/impact
• Technical expertise in computer vision/image processing algorithms, including experience building large-scale ML systems and knowledge of ML models/algorithm design
• Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively to create a shared sense of outlook or purpose cross-team and cross-functionality
• Ability to think in a strategic manner to develop innovative product solutions

About the job

As Principal Engineer, you help bring better machine learning (ML) content understanding for recommendations to YouTube. This will be a technological push for YouTube and will involve partnering closely with ML/Product Engineers to build better experiences for our users, with Google Research to understand, create, or adapt new technology for YouTube’s products, and with Infrastructure Teams to build scalable solutions.

In this role, you will be a trusted partner to provide feedback and help in upleveling content understanding (e.g. via computer vision and image processing) for content recommendations as a whole. Your work will help us scale these solutions for Responsible Recommendations in the YouTube Home, WatchNext, Shorts Notifications, and experiences.

At YouTube, we believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share, and build community through our stories. We work together to give everyone the power to share their story, explore what they love, and connect with one another in the process. Working at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and boundless creativity, we move at the speed of culture with a shared goal to show people the world. We explore new ideas, solve real problems, and have fun — and we do it all together.

Responsibilities

• Provide the technical outlook and strategy for content recommendations. Design and lead a multi-year technical roadmap, balancing short and long-term technology investments.
• Develop product outlook for content recommendation products with Product Management, UX, and other cross-functional partners.
• Drive and coordinate collaboration with Google Research and various product teams at YouTube.
• Communicate team’s plans with YouTube leadership.
• Review technical design from the team and guide technical discussions, as well as mentor Senior Individual Contributors.