2024-08-19T13:13:40-04:00 X, The Moonshot Factory
Moonshot Engineer, Cloud Software Engineer
Software Engineering
Mountain View, CA

 

This is a fixed-term contract position for 12 months

 

About the company

X is Alphabet’s moonshot factory. We are a diverse group of inventors and entrepreneurs who build and launch technologies that aim to improve the lives of millions, even billions, of people. Our goal: 10x impact on the world’s most intractable problems, not just 10% improvement. We approach projects that have the aspiration and riskiness of research with the speed and ambition of a startup.

 

The Team: 

Moonshots run on rocket fuel. Sometimes that rocket fuel includes making the most of all that Alphabet has to offer and not reinventing the wheel. Other times it might mean intentionally breaking the mold and tapping into novel tools only available outside the Alphabet ecosystem. We're a team of software engineers that interface with teams from across the X project portfolio to solve their most critical software challenges. 

 

The Role:

You will learn about X and our process for creating moonshots, as well as working with projects, at both early and late stages. During this process, we will jointly identify the right project to join full time.

As a member of the team, you have a deep passion for problem solving and experimentation. You will be responsible for embedding into project teams and working collaboratively to tackle their most pressing software engineering priorities.  

This is an extremely dynamic role and requires high cross-functional communication, organization, and planning. The ideal candidate is a self-starter and has a track record of effectively operating in a dynamic loosely structured environment (e.g. startup, new product within Google). The candidate may work on multiple projects/investigations.

 

How you will make 10X Impact:

  • Architect, design, build, and document cloud-based software solutions. Your work will potentially touch all layers (API design, production deployment, monitoring & troubleshooting, compute performance evaluation, and scaling) and will entail designing solutions that will need to adapt to changing use cases, so the ability to build extensible and maintainable software is key. 
  • Rapidly develop prototypes to evaluate feasibility
  • Work effectively across stakeholder groups to identify solutions that scale (e.g., project team, Google product teams, security, privacy).
  • Educate teams on trade-offs, cloud-specific challenges and spread knowledge of cloud tech and modern CI/CD practices. This includes job scheduling & orchestration, experience developing with containers & microservices, exposure to infrastructure like Kubernetes. 

 

What you should have:

  • A fast learner and a code writing machine (preferably in multiple programming languages); a strong commitment to code quality.
  • Experience writing and maintaining infrastructure as code (terraform, or other)
  • Hands-on cloud experience, particularly with Google Cloud Platform (GCP). What’s important is that you’ve built cloud services before.
  • Familiarity with data-intensive architectures: storage platforms, databases, pipelines, infrastructure, etc.
  • Solid software engineering skills and passionate about SWE productivity
  • BS/MS in Computer Science, or equivalent field
  • Ability to work in a small team / rapid prototyping environment and deal with uncertainty and fluidity

 

It’d be great if you had these:

  • Experience developing experimental and production services using GCP and Github, including frequently-used tools and systems such as Cloud Spanner, Vertex AI, TensorFlow, Dataflow, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), GitHub Actions, and Terraform.
  • Experience with front-end development
  • Familiarity with data analytics / ML modeling
  • Experience working in a startup environment
  • Experience with Google-internal software tools, services, and frameworks

 

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $160,000 - $215,000 + bonuses + 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 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, or benefits.

 

At X, we don't just accept difference - we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. We are 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.

If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact us at: x-accommodation-request@x.team.

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