Senior UX Engineer, Search UX

About the Job

At Google, we "Focus on the user and all else will follow." Our UX Engineers are versatile, passionate, and driven to advance the vision for our design teams. Comfortable working across discipline lines, you will develop products and prototypes that bring innovative ideas to life.

Joining a multi-disciplinary UX team, you will collaborate with Engineering and Product Management, using user insights to create industry-leading products. In a fast-paced environment, you will use your creativity, analytical skills, and knowledge of user-facing technologies to: create prototypes that define product experiences; launch innovative features; build tools to accelerate UX teams; and bridge design and engineering to ensure efficient, high-quality execution.

Our mission is to scale the Search Design System to meet organizational needs by increasing adoption, extending with additional frameworks like motion, illustration, and Generative User Experience (UX), and evolving through contributions from collaborating teams.

Reporting into Search Design Systems, we serve as a centralized partner, engaging with product teams across the Search Product Area (PA). By providing our domain expertise and unique skills, we actively enable them to build, cohesive, and accessible user experiences at scale.

In this role, you will bridge the gap between the design system and the product teams it serves, defining how the system evolves to meet organizational needs. You will also be measured by the success of its partners and their users.

In Google Search, we're reimagining what it means to search for information – any way and anywhere. To do that, we need to solve complex engineering challenges and expand our infrastructure, while maintaining a universally accessible and useful experience that people around the world rely on. In joining the Search team, you'll have an opportunity to make an impact on billions of people globally.

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

US: $159000 - $231000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Act as a subject matter expert on models, identifying how to leverage them for novel user experiences. Lead or contribute to key projects, ensuring a holistic systems-thinking approach and advocating for user needs across platforms and applications. Foster a system-wide design mindset within the team.
• Design and lead dynamic system architectures, translating non-deterministic back-end systems into reliable, intuitive front-end experiences.
• Partner with executive cross-functional members of the teams across different PAs to resolve ambiguity and define technical requirements.
  
• Apply an inventive mindset to technical issues, finding ways to bridge gaps between design goal and model capabilities.
  
• Execute technical skills for building web-based or native prototypes or reliable tooling for others.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 6 years of experience in front-end development, technical UX design, or prototyping.
  
• Experience in the design, maintenance, or architecture of enterprise design systems, including design tokens, component lifecycles, or headless UI architectures.
• Experience working with Large Language Model (LLM) APIs, including structured outputs, function calling, tool use, or semantic routing.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Design, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience in technical leadership and managing projects.
• Experience with vibe coding tools, including AI Studio, Cursor, Antigravity, Firebase Studio.
• Experience working with hosted back-ends (e.g., Firebase, Supabase) to power prototypes.
• Knowledge of technical constraints in designing for iOS.
• Familiarity working across full tech stacks and production environments.

Additional Information

Applicants in San Francisco: Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.