Principal Software Engineer, Android Security · Google · 2026
Principal software engineer for Android security and former director of Android Platform Security who resigned after Google agreed to provide AI for classified Pentagon use. Mayrhofer, a self-described pacifist, said the agreement could enable offensive military applications or mass surveillance and criticized the lack of internal debate or communication around the decision. He wrote that Google’s direction left him “with the only choice to resign.”
Mayrhofer's resignation letter was dated May 18, 2026. He remains employed through August 31, 2026, while serving his notice period, and said he would immediately stop any AI work that could fall under the Pentagon agreement.
“Given Google’s top-level management direction and recent doubling-down, this unfortunately leaves me with the only choice to resign.”
Mayrhofer joined Google in 2017 as Director of Android Platform Security and later moved to a part-time principal software engineer role after returning to Austria. In his public farewell note, he contrasted Google's earlier restrictions on weapons and surveillance applications with its new classified military AI agreement and said the change was neither debated nor communicated internally. He also criticized what he described as the company's retreat from its carbon-neutral goals, but identified the military agreement and his pacifist principles as the reasons his resignation had become unavoidable.
Mayrhofer's public farewell note explaining his decision to resign from Google after the company entered a classified AI agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense. He contrasts the agreement with Google's earlier restrictions on weapons and surveillance applications and argues that its terms could allow AI to support offensive warfare or mass surveillance. A self-described pacifist, Mayrhofer says the company's change in direction was imposed without meaningful internal debate or communication and was incompatible with his ethical principles. He also criticizes Google's environmental direction. His Google employment is scheduled to end on August 31, 2026.