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Tech Lead, YouTube Shorts Discovery, ML Recommendations

Pay
USD 207,000–300,000/yearAnnual period assumed — pay source
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. US: $207000 - $300000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits Learn more aboutbenefits at Google (https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/benefits/) .
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Work setting
Not stated
Employment
Not stated

What you’ll work on

Full posting
  • Provide technical leadership on high-impact projects and manage priorities and deadlines

  • Lead design of solutions in specialized ML areas and guide model optimization and data processing

  • Influence and coach a distributed team of engineers

  • Build discovery and recommendation engine, including LLM-based recommendation systems

  • Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain large scale software solutions

From the employer’s posting
Provide technical leadership on high-impact projects. Manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables.
Lead the design and implementation of solutions in specialized ML areas, optimize ML infrastructure, and guide the development of model optimization and data processing strategies.
Influence and coach a distributed team of engineers.
focusing on the discovery/recommendation engine and LLM-based recommendation systems.
Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance large scale software solutions.
Education & alternatives
**Minimum qualifications:** + Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience. + 8 years of experience in software development.
**Preferred qualifications:** + Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, or a related technical field. + 8 years of experience in data structures and algorithms, with experience building distributed, large-scale machine learning systems.
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Posting record

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Status in our records
Live
First seen by us
Oct 13, 202629 days ago
Recorded sightings
11
Last seen by us
Nov 10, 2026
Reposted
once since Aug 21, 2026

We found this posting on the National Labor Exchange. These dates show when we found the posting. Check the employer’s website to confirm it is still accepting applications. We count a repost when the same title and location comes back as a new listing within 60 days of the last one coming down. Some hiring systems expire listings on a schedule, so repost rates vary by system.

How this job compares

Pay

Higher than most similar jobs

$207K–$300K against $166K–$240K, the middle half of what similar US postings state.

From 1,383 postings in the last year. Stated ranges, not salaries paid.

Time since we first saw it

Day 29

Similar jobs usually come down between day 8 and day 75.

Well past Google’s usual: its jobs come down by about day 3.

From 5,198 similar postings that came down, and 484 of Google’s. Coming down is not always a hire.

Google is hiring

233 open jobs

Open jobs by the week we first saw them, last 12 weeks.

  • ML Engineer hiring is picking up
  • Takes jobs down quickly
  • 7% of open jobs were reposted
Hiring record

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Complete your application on www.google.com. The employer’s form will show what is required.

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Has Google posted this job before?

Yes. We’ve followed one other Tech Lead, YouTube Shorts Discovery, ML Recommendations job there since August 2026. It is still up.

  1. Mountain ViewStill up after 82 days, first seen Aug 21
  2. This jobUp 29 days so far, first seen Oct 13

About Google

People
About 190,820 in 2025, up 4% from the year before.Annual report (SEC Form 10-K)
Company
Listed as GOOGL.
H-1B visas
1,765 approved for new hires in fiscal 2025.US Citizenship and Immigration Services

Demand for ML Engineer roles

New ML Engineer postings at the employers we follow are up 13% over the last 6 weeks compared with the 6 before.

Weekly new ML Engineer postings at the same employers, from the week of August 17 to the week of November 2. The fewest in a week was 617, the most 1,122, and the latest week had 1,122.
August 17Last week

Each bar is one week of new postings. The darkest bars are the last 6 weeks.

Counted from the hiring pages we’ve followed for at least five weeks, so employers we add don’t look like growth. Updated weekly.

About the role

We file this job under ML Engineer, by the work the posting describes.

ML engineers put machine learning models into products. They write the code that trains, ships, serves and monitors models so a recommendation or prediction works for real users.

Postings ask for strong Python and software engineering, a framework such as PyTorch, cloud services, and more and more often experience with large language models.

A data scientist often works out which model to build; an ML engineer makes it run reliably in production.

US government figures for computer and information research scientists

Median yearly pay, May 2025
$140,300
Expected change, 2025 to 2035
21.8% more jobsagainst 3.5% for all jobs

The government has no code for ML engineers, so these figures are for the closest group, computer and information research scientists.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) and Employment Projections (2025 to 2035). Occupation code 15-1221.

Job description

View original posting ↗

Tech Lead, YouTube Shorts Discovery, ML Recommendations Share Tech Lead, YouTube Shorts Discovery, ML Recommendations _corporate_fare_ YouTube _place_ Mountain View, CA, USA **Advanced** Experience owning outcomes and decision making, solving ambiguous problems and influencing stakeholders; deep expertise in domain. Share Tech Lead, YouTube Shorts Discovery, ML Recommendations _info_outline_ XIn most instances, this position requires in-person interviews as part of the hiring process. **Minimum qualifications:** + Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience. + 8 years of experience in software development. + 5 years of experience testing, and launching software products, and 3 years of experience with software design and architecture. + 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), or specialization in another ML field. + 5 years of experience with ML design and ML infrastructure (e.g., model deployment, model evaluation, data processing, debugging, fine tuning). **Preferred qualifications:** + Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, or a related technical field. + 8 years of experience in data structures and algorithms, with experience building distributed, large-scale machine learning systems. + 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role, defining technical goals, setting roadmap direction, and mentoring executive engineering teams. + Experience designing and deploying recommendation systems, personalized ranking models, or retrieval systems. + Expertise in managing the cold-start problem, reinforcement learning, or exploration/exploitation algorithms. **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 Short-form Video team owns everything from the mobile creation experience and related mobile effects (e.g., text, stickers, filters) , through a new video player experience that provides full screen videos with a quick tap to see the next videos, and through all the backend systems to allow creating and serving these videos and recommending them to users on home, search, and more. Shorts exploration is a critical part of shorts recommendation with the mission to find an initial audience for fresh videos to enlarge our recommendable corpus and to inspire creation. We leverage various modeling techniques and signals to build initial audiences for fresh videos within the recommendation stack. 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. Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. US: $207000 - $300000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits Learn more aboutbenefits at Google (https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/benefits/) . **Responsibilities** + Contribute to personalized quality recommendations and help build and grow a promising new product within Google, focusing on the discovery/recommendation engine and LLM-based recommendation systems. + Provide technical leadership on high-impact projects. Manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables. + Facilitate alignment and clarity across teams on goals, outcomes, and timelines. Influence and coach a distributed team of engineers. + Lead the design and implementation of solutions in specialized ML areas, optimize ML infrastructure, and guide the development of model optimization and data processing strategies. + Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance large scale software solutions. Information collected and processed as part of your Google Careers profile, and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Google'sApplicant and Candidate Privacy Policy (./privacy-policy) . Google is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to building a workforce that is representative of the users we serve, creating a culture of belonging, and providing an equal employment opportunity regardless of race, creed, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding), expecting or parents-to-be, criminal histories consistent with legal requirements, or any other basis protected by law. See alsoGoogle's EEO Policy (https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/eeo/) ,Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal (https://careers.google.com/jobs/dist/legal/EEOC\_KnowYourRights\_10\_20.pdf) ,Belonging at Google (https://about.google/belonging/) , andHow we hire (https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/) . If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing ourAccommodations for Applicants form (https://goo.gl/forms/aBt6Pu71i1kzpLHe2) . Google is a global company and, in order to facilitate efficient collaboration and communication globally, English proficiency is a requirement for all roles unless stated otherwise in the job posting. To all recruitment agencies: Google does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Google employees, or any other organization location. Google is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. Equity is granted exclusively and discretionarily by Alphabet Inc. on the basis of an agreement concluded between you and Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is your sole contractual partner with respect to equity grants. GSU grants are not guaranteed, are discretionary, are subject to approval by the Alphabet Inc. board of directors or its delegate, the terms of the relevant Alphabet Inc. stock plan, and your grant agreement. They have no impact on statutory payments. Current or past grants do not confer an acquired right. 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 https://careers.google.com/eeo/ and https://careers.google.com/jobs/dist/legal/OFCCP_EEO_Post.pdf If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form: https://goo.gl/forms/aBt6Pu71i1kzpLHe2.
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Pay
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. US: $207000 - $300000 (USD) + 20% bonus target + equity + benefits Learn more aboutbenefits at Google (https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/benefits/) .
Location & working pattern

Mountain View, CA

Working pattern and location restrictions need checking in the full posting.

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