Principal Engineer Jobs in Mountain View, CA
Principal Engineer jobs in Mountain View are concentrated in the North Bayshore and Castro Street corridors, with additional demand around Middlefield Road and the Route 101 tech corridor, across cloud infrastructure, semiconductor design, and AI platform engineering. Employers hiring right now include Microsoft, General Motors, and General Motors (GM). See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
Find Principal Engineer JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 884+ Principal Engineer jobs
Minimum qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or other relevant engineering discipline or equivalent practical experience.
- 15 years of professional experience in engineering.
Preferred qualifications:
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering.
- Experience providing technical leadership across a larger organization, including motivating others at all levels by creating a shared sense of vision and purpose.
- Knowledge of Google Ads products, the ecosystems our products and users exist in, and our competitors and their products.
- Ability to balance detailed, technical guidance with “big picture” strategy.
- Thought leadership to identify and design problems commensurate with PE scope and difficulty and a desire to solve hard engineering problems.
- A demonstrated track record of technical innovation within large, complex, and cross-functional engineering environments.
About the job
Users come first at Google. Nowhere is this more important than in our Advertising: we believe that ads and commercial information can be highly useful to our users, especially when that information is relevant to what our users wish to find or do. Advertisers worldwide use Google Ads to promote their products; publishers use AdSense to serve relevant ads on their website; and businesses around the world use our products (like Google Shopping, and Google Wallet) to support their online businesses and bring users into their offline stores. We are constantly innovating to deliver the most effective advertising and commerce opportunities of tomorrow.
The Ads DevAI Platform team enables Ads to leverage the power of LLMs to accelerate optimizations, infra migrations, resource efficiency and more. The team builds the infrastructure and marquee agents required to enable AI-powered acceleration for Ads engineering workflows.
The Ads Platform team is seeking a strong senior technical leader to design and accelerate Ads engineering workflows using AI.
Google Ads is helping power the open internet with the best technology that connects and creates value for people, publishers, advertisers, and Google. We’re made up of multiple teams, building Google’s Advertising products including search, display, shopping, travel and video advertising, as well as analytics. Our teams create trusted experiences between people and businesses with useful ads. We help grow businesses of all sizes from small businesses, to large brands, to YouTube creators, with effective advertiser tools that deliver measurable results. We also enable Google to engage with customers at scale.
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.US: $307000 - $427000 (USD) + 30% bonus target + equity + benefits
Learn more about benefits at Google.
Responsibilities
- Design and build the foundational DevAI infrastructure for Ads, ensuring extensibility, applicability, and maximum ROI across all business verticals and functions.
- Provide technical leadership and uber-TL oversight for cross-cutting Ads Internal AI projects, including marquee agents, AI-friendly infrastructure, and strategic DevAI big bets.
- Drive the transition toward AI-forward architecture and self-managing codebases by enabling agentic evaluation-driven development, skills, and context integration.
- Lead the technical strategy and development for the DevAI platform and custom agents, while mentoring Business Account Managers (BAM) AI across Ads infrastructure organizations.
- Collaborate with uber-TLs across Ads PAGs, Core, and GDM to influence roadmaps, technical direction, and Google's broader Buying platforms and Ads vision.
Minimum qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or other relevant engineering discipline or equivalent practical experience.
- 15 years of professional experience in engineering.
Preferred qualifications:
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering.
- Experience providing technical leadership across a larger organization, including motivating others at all levels by creating a shared sense of vision and purpose.
- Knowledge of Google Ads products, the ecosystems our products and users exist in, and our competitors and their products.
- Ability to balance detailed, technical guidance with “big picture” strategy.
- Thought leadership to identify and design problems commensurate with PE scope and difficulty and a desire to solve hard engineering problems.
- A demonstrated track record of technical innovation within large, complex, and cross-functional engineering environments.
About the job
Users come first at Google. Nowhere is this more important than in our Advertising: we believe that ads and commercial information can be highly useful to our users, especially when that information is relevant to what our users wish to find or do. Advertisers worldwide use Google Ads to promote their products; publishers use AdSense to serve relevant ads on their website; and businesses around the world use our products (like Google Shopping, and Google Wallet) to support their online businesses and bring users into their offline stores. We are constantly innovating to deliver the most effective advertising and commerce opportunities of tomorrow.
The Ads DevAI Platform team enables Ads to leverage the power of LLMs to accelerate optimizations, infra migrations, resource efficiency and more. The team builds the infrastructure and marquee agents required to enable AI-powered acceleration for Ads engineering workflows.
The Ads Platform team is seeking a strong senior technical leader to design and accelerate Ads engineering workflows using AI.
Google Ads is helping power the open internet with the best technology that connects and creates value for people, publishers, advertisers, and Google. We’re made up of multiple teams, building Google’s Advertising products including search, display, shopping, travel and video advertising, as well as analytics. Our teams create trusted experiences between people and businesses with useful ads. We help grow businesses of all sizes from small businesses, to large brands, to YouTube creators, with effective advertiser tools that deliver measurable results. We also enable Google to engage with customers at scale.
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.US: $307000 - $427000 (USD) + 30% bonus target + equity + benefits
Learn more about benefits at Google.
Responsibilities
- Design and build the foundational DevAI infrastructure for Ads, ensuring extensibility, applicability, and maximum ROI across all business verticals and functions.
- Provide technical leadership and uber-TL oversight for cross-cutting Ads Internal AI projects, including marquee agents, AI-friendly infrastructure, and strategic DevAI big bets.
- Drive the transition toward AI-forward architecture and self-managing codebases by enabling agentic evaluation-driven development, skills, and context integration.
- Lead the technical strategy and development for the DevAI platform and custom agents, while mentoring Business Account Managers (BAM) AI across Ads infrastructure organizations.
- Collaborate with uber-TLs across Ads PAGs, Core, and GDM to influence roadmaps, technical direction, and Google's broader Buying platforms and Ads vision.
See All 884+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Mountain View
Find roles in Mountain View that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Principal Engineer JobsPrincipal Engineer Job Market in Mountain View
Who's Hiring
- Microsoft295
- General Motors177
- General Motors (GM)118
- Google59
- Intuit59
Top Industries Hiring
- Automotive177
- Electronics & Hardware177
- Banking & Financial Services177
- Fintech59
- Technology & Software59
Principal Engineer Jobs in Mountain View: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a principal engineer job in Mountain View?
Focus your search on Mountain View's North Bayshore cluster, where large technology platforms and cloud infrastructure companies hire principal engineers at scale, and on the Middlefield Road corridor, home to semiconductor and hardware firms. Candidates who demonstrate end-to-end system ownership, cross-functional technical leadership, and prior experience shipping at hyperscale stand out. Building relationships through local engineering meetups and Mountain View-based tech communities also accelerates the process.
Which companies hire principal engineers in Mountain View?
Employers hiring principal engineers in Mountain View right now include Microsoft, General Motors, and General Motors (GM), based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. Mountain View's employer mix skews heavily toward established technology platforms, semiconductor companies, and AI-focused startups that have matured to the stage where they require senior technical leadership rather than generalist engineers.
Are there remote principal engineer jobs in Mountain View?
Yes, though availability depends on the specialization: distributed systems and platform engineering roles tend to support remote work, while hardware, semiconductor, and lab-adjacent roles almost always require on-site presence. About 100% of principal engineer openings tied to Mountain View are remote or hybrid as of August 2026, skewed toward software-defined infrastructure and AI teams rather than chip design or physical systems groups in the area.
How can I get a principal engineer job in Mountain View with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in Mountain View is joining a mid-stage startup in the North Bayshore or Castro Street area as a senior engineer and earning the principal designation through demonstrated scope expansion. Mountain View's density of growth-stage AI and infrastructure companies means there are openings for engineers willing to own systems end-to-end from day one. Targeting roles labeled staff engineer or technical lead at these firms gives you the fastest route to a principal title locally.
Which industries hire the most principal engineers in Mountain View?
Most principal engineer openings in Mountain View sit in Automotive, Electronics & Hardware, and Banking & Financial Services, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. Mountain View's position at the heart of Silicon Valley means hiring in these sectors is driven by headquarters and core engineering teams rather than regional offices, creating consistent demand for senior-level technical leadership roles.
Related Jobs in California
See All 884+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Mountain View
Find roles in Mountain View that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Principal Engineer Jobs