Staff Software Engineer – Google Play

About the role

As a Staff Software Engineer you will be a strong technical leader for Google Play, shaping architecture initiatives in partnership with engineering management and cross‑functional groups. You will help grow the Product Development Center in Nairobi, building close collaboration with Play teams in the US, UK and India, while mentoring the local engineering team.

Key responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across several Play Games products.
• Participate in the full life‑cycle of multi‑year products: define strategy, gather requirements, design systems, write code and tests, and launch features to a 3B+ device fleet.
• Integrate new advances in Gemini into Google Play products to enhance user experiences.
• Mentor junior engineers, offering technical guidance and supporting their career growth.
• Demonstrate master‑level AI fluency and apply AI tools throughout the development process.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of software development experience.
• 5+ years of testing and launching software products.
• 3+ years of software design and architecture experience.
• Proven technical leadership in project teams and matrixed, cross‑functional environments.
• Experience with Google’s Java Android stack, Java server environment, GMSCore and Android native development.

Required skills

• Java
• Android development (including native)
• GMSCore
• Data structures and algorithms
• AI tools (e.g., Gemini)