YouTube Partner Engineering Lead, Mobile and Video Infra

About the Job

As a Partner Engineer on the Devices Ops and Partner Engineering team, you will lead deployments, optimize implementations, and manage integrations to build strong, successful, long-term device partnerships. You will own technical engagements and will be the key driver in finding creative/innovative solutions that lead them to the next level.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to lead projects and teams that require close collaboration with other teams like Product, Engineering, Business Development, Operations and Marketing. You will play a key role in improving existing operations, defining and commercializing new solutions, bridging product gaps, automating partner operations and taking new initiatives from conception to successful deployment.

You will be able to balance business and partner needs with technical constraints, develop innovative, cutting edge solutions and act as a partner and consultant to those you are working with. You will also be able to build tools and automate products, oversee the technical execution and business operations of Google's partnerships, as well as develop product strategy and prioritize projects and resources.

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: $127000 - $182000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary technical liaison, aligning YouTube's cross-functional product, UX, legal, and video infrastructure teams with global mobile OEMs, SoC vendors, and carriers to deploy YouTube's innovations.
• Lead co-engineering initiatives to adapt YouTube apps to the hardware profiles, ensuring flawless UI navigation, low-latency playback, and optimized resource consumption across billions of devices.
• Synchronize client-side player engines with backend transcoding pipelines to drive the global adoption of advanced media codecs. Partner directly with external engineering teams to isolate, debug, and resolve platform-level regressions—such as audio/video sync errors, playback crashes— before production releases.
• Design and enforce strict hardware/software certification workflows, validating compliance with security protocols, Widevine DRM, and YouTube’s internal quality standards.
• Leverage client-side playback telemetry and automated testing frameworks to identify ecosystem-wide performance trends, translating insights into improvements for YouTube’s core streaming architecture.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 3 years of experience working with client-side web technologies (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or HTTP).
  
• 3 years of experience coding with one or more programming languages (e.g., Java, C/C++, Python).
  
• Experience troubleshooting technical issues for internal/external partners or customers.

Preferred qualifications:

• 5 years of software-focused program or project management experience in the business technology or networking sectors, with the ability to collaborate with cross-functional engineering, sales, and marketing teams.
• Experience partnering with embedded systems, mobile ecosystems, SoC providers, or device manufacturing companies (in mobile or SoC embedded).
• Experience with operating system architectures, media/playback frameworks, and application ecosystems.
• Ability to drive complex cross-functional initiatives in both structured and ambiguous environments with attention to detail.
• Excellent communication and problem-solving skills, with the ability to present technical concepts and business strategies to internal and external stakeholders.