Just the other day, YouTube hired Jaunt VR’s Scott Broock as its ‘Global VR Evangelist‘, and earlier this month, Google’s Vice President of product management, Clay Bavor, was reportedly put in charge of the company’s newly-created VR division. If those reports were not convincing enough proof that Google is betting big on virtual reality, then the latest report ought to do it for sure. The Mountain View, California-based company is, apparently, looking for multiple personnel to work on its VR projects, as is evident from a number of job postings on its website. Among the positions up for grabs is that of a Hardware Engineering Technical Lead Manager, a PCB Layout Engineer, an Engineering Project Specialist and an Electrical Hardware Engineer.
Coming to the first job, the listing spells out exactly what the tech giant is looking for in its Hardware Engineering Technical Lead Manager. The company says that the person will “drive the design and execution of our ever increasing product portfolio” and “will be responsible for the building multiple CE devices and will put together the right team that will scale with our product offering”. Meanwhile, the PCB layout designer will be responsible for “fast-paced boards for consumer devices” so as to ensure that these “cutting-edge devices are reliable and robust”. Most of the listed jobs would require candidates to have a minimum of BS degree in Electronics, but an MS degree in Electrical Engineering is said to be ‘preferred’, along with at least five to seven years of experience in working in relevant fields.
It will be interesting to see when these VR devices from Google finally hit the store shelves, but consumer-oriented VR devices were probably something that was always on the back of Google’s mind, and the company was probably just biding its time to throw its hat in the ring. Google, of course, one of the first companies to give regular users a taste of virtual reality at their fingertips with its Cardboard project. The company has also spend big bucks with its acquisition of the tech startup, Magic Leap, whose augmented reality project may also prove to be the backbone for a future offering from Google that may someday potentially be a competitor to Microsoft’s upcoming HoloLens AR headset.