Research Scientist, Security and Privacy

Comprehensive Benefits Package at Google

In accordance with Washington state law, Google offers a comprehensive benefits package to all eligible US-based employees. Benefits for the Research Scientist, Security and Privacy role include:

• Health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance
• Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years
• Sick Time: 40 hours/year (statutory, where applicable); 5 days/event (discretionary)
• Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
• Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
• Holidays: 13 paid days per year

Please note: By applying, you can share your preferred working location from New York, NY, USA or Seattle, WA, USA.

Minimum Qualifications

• PhD degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• One or more scientific publication submission(s) for conferences, journals, or public repositories (e.g., CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) in security and privacy, systems, large language models (LLMs), or related areas.

Preferred Qualifications

• 2 years of experience in coding.
• 1 year of experience owning and initiating research agendas.
• Experience in research comparable to a postdoc at the intersection of security and privacy, systems, large language models, or closely related areas.
• Experience in machine learning security and privacy, and demonstrated interest and proficiency in privacy-preserving technologies (such as differential privacy or contextual integrity).

About The Research Scientist, Security and Privacy Role

Google maintains a diverse portfolio of research projects, driven by fundamental research, new product innovation, product contribution, and infrastructure goals. As a Research Scientist, Security and Privacy, you will establish large-scale tests and deploy promising ideas quickly and broadly. You'll manage deadlines and deliverables while applying the latest theories to develop new and improved products, processes, or technologies. Your work will span creating experiments, prototyping implementations, and designing new architectures, addressing real-world problems across computer science fields like machine (and deep) learning, data mining, natural language processing, hardware and software performance analysis, and improving compilers for mobile platforms.

You will actively contribute to the wider research community by sharing and publishing your findings, inspired by internal projects and collaborations with research programs at partner universities and technical institutes globally.

In this role, you will influence and help lead Google’s investment in security and privacy-preserving machine learning technologies, bringing these capabilities to a global audience. This involves pursuing fundamental research that shapes system design. Our team engages in open academic collaboration and partners with product teams to deliver impact through product launches. This provides opportunities for collaboration with researchers internally and at universities, creating end-to-end systems solutions in production, and applying and growing leadership skills across Google.

Google Research tackles challenges that define the technology of today and tomorrow. Our research teams impact technology used by billions daily, from fundamental research to product development. We aspire to make discoveries that impact everyone, sharing our research and tools through academic publications, open-source projects, and application to Google products.

Responsibilities

• Develop personal agents that transform computing for people worldwide by conducting research and innovating in privacy-preserving technologies and security protections for agentic systems.
• Collaborate closely with researchers and numerous partner and customer teams across Google.
• Author research papers to share and generate impact of research results across the team and in the research community.
• Develop research prototypes or conduct simulations to further evaluate research impact, finalize hypotheses, and refine research methodology under minimal guidance.

Compensation for Research Scientist, Security and Privacy

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $141,000-$202,000, plus bonus, equity, and benefits. Salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Individual pay is influenced by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can provide specific salary range details for your preferred location during the hiring process. Compensation details listed reflect base salary only, excluding bonus, equity, or benefits.

Equal Opportunity at Google

Google is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer, committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you require accommodation due to a disability or special need, please complete our Accommodations for Applicants form.

Key Skills/Competency

• Security Research
• Privacy-Preserving Technologies
• Machine Learning (ML)
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• System Design
• Academic Publication
• Prototyping
• Differential Privacy
• Contextual Integrity
• Collaboration