Senior Staff Security Engineer, Google Distributed Cloud

About the job

Our Security team works to create and maintain the safest operating environment for Google's users and developers. Security Engineers work with network equipment and actively monitor our systems for attacks and intrusions. In this role, you will also work with software engineers to proactively identify and fix security flaws and vulnerabilities.

The Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) Security Team is dedicated to ensuring the security and privacy of GDC connected and air-gapped products. We are seeking a Staff Security Engineer to embed security expertise into every stage of the product development lifecycle. In this role, you will manage a wide range of security priorities, continuously assessing our systems to design, develop, deploy, and enhance security solutions. You will be responsible for safeguarding customer data and Google IP across the full stack—from hardware to the application layer.

Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business and industry. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology, and tools that help developers build more sustainably. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.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

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Lead security architecture, threat modeling, and design reviews for GDC products, ensuring a strong security-by-design posture from inception through deployment.
• Drive the long-term security strategy and roadmap for large-scale distributed systems, proactively identifying and mitigating systemic risks and complex architectural vulnerabilities.
• Partner across engineering, SRE, and product teams to establish and drive the adoption of organization-wide security standards, best practices, and secure coding patterns.
• Lead complex security incident response efforts, conduct root-cause analyses, and implement scalable remediation strategies to protect the integrity of GDC infrastructure.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior and executive engineers, fostering a culture of security excellence and continuous improvement across the engineering organization.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 10 years of experience with security engineering, computer and network security, and security protocols.
• 10 years of experience with security assessments, security design reviews, or threat modeling.
• 10 years of coding experience in one or more general-purpose languages.
• Experience working on Linux internals.
• Experience managing Kubernetes environments, deploying containerized applications, monitoring cluster health, and troubleshooting issues.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience in hardware security and reverse engineering.
• Experience with Security Compliance and Accreditation processes.
• Experience with cloud security concepts and technologies, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), encryption, data loss prevention, security information and event management, cloud workload protection platforms, and threat detection/prevention solutions.
• Experience in vulnerability management, risk assessment, triage, or remediation.
• Experience in designing, implementing, and verifying security controls.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 10 years of experience with security engineering, computer and network security, and security protocols.
• 10 years of experience with security assessments, security design reviews, or threat modeling.
• 10 years of coding experience in one or more general-purpose languages.
• Experience working on Linux internals.
• Experience managing Kubernetes environments, deploying containerized applications, monitoring cluster health, and troubleshooting issues.

In most instances, this position requires in-person interviews as part of the hiring process.

In accordance with Washington state law, we are highlighting our comprehensive benefits package, which is available to all eligible US based employees. Benefits for this role include:

• Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
• Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment
• Sick Time: 40 hours/year (increased to 69 hours/year for Seattle) including 5 discretionary sick days per instance
• Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
• Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
• Holidays: 13 paid days per year