# Engineering Manager - Cloud Efficiency
**Company:** [Snowflake](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/snowflake)
Lead Snowflake's Cloud Efficiency engineering team as an Engineering Manager responsible for developing a unified, self-serve cloud cost optimization platform that makes resource usage and spend attributable and governable across billions of dollars in annual cloud infrastructure. This role combines technical leadership with people management, requiring experience building large-scale distributed systems, leading engineering teams through multi-quarter roadmaps, and driving innovation in FinOps and cost optimization tooling. You'll partner cross-functionally with Product, Finance, and Data Science to translate company-level spend objectives into engineering systems that deliver insights and drive cloud optimization at massive scale.
**Role:** Engineering Manager
**Seniority:** Manager
**Locations:** US-WA-Bellevue
**Salary:** 236000–339200 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/snowflake/22344641-a2c9-4b19-8068-c6e0e80ac4e1)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/snowflake/engineering-manager-cloud-efficiency
---
## Responsibilities

- Lead and Grow Engineering Team: Build and mentor a talented team of software engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, continuous learning, and innovation in cloud infrastructure optimization. Manage hiring, performance development, career growth, and retention of high-performing engineering talent while creating psychological safety for experimentation and calculated risk-taking.
- Define Cloud Efficiency Technical Roadmap: Translate company-level cloud spend objectives into a comprehensive engineering roadmap that delivers authoritative cost data systems, resource ownership registries, attribution pipelines, cost and unit economics modeling, observability platforms, governance policies, and optimization workflows. Prioritize initiatives based on impact, feasibility, and strategic alignment while balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform health.
- Set Backend and Data Architecture Strategy: Establish technical direction for backend systems, data pipelines, APIs, and infrastructure that measure, attribute, and surface cost and usage insights at massive scale. Make architectural decisions around data processing, storage, retrieval, and visualization that support real-time insights and enable AI-driven optimization.
- Own End-to-End Delivery: Drive full project lifecycle ownership from planning and requirements scoping through technical design reviews, implementation execution, production launch, monitoring, and iterative improvements based on customer feedback and performance metrics. Establish quality gates and excellence standards that balance velocity with system reliability and maintainability.
- Drive Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner seamlessly with Product, Engineering leadership, Finance, Data Science, and other teams to ensure smooth system integrations, alignment on metrics and definitions, and end-to-end customer success. Represent the Cloud Efficiency team in broader engineering initiatives, contribute to company-wide technical standards, and advocate for platform investments.
- Represent Team in Technical Forums: Participate in engineering-wide technical discussions, design reviews, and strategy sessions. Contribute to Snowflake's technical culture by sharing best practices, mentoring peers across teams, and helping shape the company's approach to cloud infrastructure and cost optimization.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Related Field Degree","description":"Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related quantitative field. Equivalent professional experience and demonstrated expertise also considered."}

### technical

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Design and Implementation","description":"Deep hands-on experience architecting and building distributed systems at scale, including understanding of consistency models, fault tolerance, replication, and optimization techniques. Ability to design systems that handle billions of data points and real-time processing at scale."}
- {"name":"Data Engineering and Pipelines","description":"Strong background building data pipelines, ETL/ELT systems, and data infrastructure that processes, transforms, and serves large volumes of data. Experience with stream processing, batch processing, and real-time data integration across multiple sources and systems."}
- {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure and FinOps","description":"Demonstrated expertise building cost management, budgeting, billing systems, or FinOps tooling in AWS, Azure, or GCP environments. Understanding of cloud resource optimization, reserved instances, spot pricing, cost allocation, chargeback mechanisms, and cloud consumption patterns."}
- {"name":"Anomaly Detection and Time-Series Analysis","description":"Experience implementing anomaly detection algorithms, time-series forecasting, and statistical analysis for operational monitoring or cost optimization. Familiarity with ML-driven approaches to identifying unusual spending patterns and optimization opportunities."}
- {"name":"Backend APIs and Services Architecture","description":"Proven ability designing and building scalable backend APIs, microservices, and internal tools that serve high volumes of requests. Experience with API design patterns, authentication, rate limiting, and creating developer-friendly platforms."}

### experience

- {"name":"Software Engineering Leadership (3+ Years)","description":"Minimum 3 years as an engineering manager or technical leader managing teams through the design and delivery of large-scale production systems. Proven track record hiring, mentoring, developing, and retaining strong engineering talent with demonstrated impact on team performance and career growth."}
- {"name":"Total Software Engineering Career (9+ Years)","description":"Minimum 9 years of progressive software engineering experience building production systems, with solid foundation in distributed systems, backend development, or data engineering. Demonstrates ability to grow from individual contributor to leadership roles."}
- {"name":"Multi-Quarter Roadmap Execution","description":"Track record defining, communicating, and executing multi-quarter technical roadmaps in complex environments. Demonstrated ability to balance short-term delivery commitments with long-term platform health, technical debt management, and strategic initiatives."}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Executive Communication","description":"Proven ability distilling complex technical problems and solutions for executive audiences including CFOs, finance teams, and business stakeholders. Strong communication skills translating between technical and business contexts while motivating engineers around shared vision and company objectives."}
- {"name":"Large-Scale Production Systems","description":"Experience building and operating production systems at massive scale handling billions of transactions, high throughput, or substantial data volumes. Comfortable making architectural tradeoffs between performance, reliability, consistency, and operational complexity."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Engineering Team Leadership","description":"Demonstrated ability to build, mentor, and lead engineering teams through complex projects. Excellent coaching and feedback skills, with proven ability developing future technical leaders and building high-performing organizations."}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems Architecture","description":"Strong fundamentals in building distributed systems including consensus algorithms, fault tolerance, load balancing, and optimization at scale. Ability to make sound architectural tradeoffs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance."}
- {"name":"Strategic Roadmap Development","description":"Capability to define multi-quarter technical strategies that align with business objectives, balance competing priorities, and drive execution. Ability to communicate vision, build team alignment, and adapt to changing priorities."}
- {"name":"Cloud Cost Management","description":"Experience with cloud infrastructure cost management, billing systems, or FinOps practices in AWS, Azure, or GCP. Understanding of cloud economics, resource optimization, and cost attribution methodologies."}
- {"name":"Data Pipeline Development","description":"Hands-on experience building and operating data pipelines, ETL systems, and infrastructure for processing large-scale data. Understanding of data quality, consistency, and performance considerations."}
- {"name":"Hands-On Technical Problem Solving","description":"Strong ability to drill deep into complex system designs and implementations, review code, and provide technical guidance. Comfortable debugging distributed systems issues and making architectural decisions based on technical analysis."}
- {"name":"Executive Communication","description":"Ability to communicate technical complexity to non-technical audiences including finance and business stakeholders. Skilled at translating between technical and business contexts while maintaining accuracy and clarity."}

### preferred

- {"name":"AI and Machine Learning Integration","description":"Experience incorporating AI, machine learning, or anomaly detection into operational tools or cost optimization products. Understanding of how to leverage ML models for intelligent resource optimization and predictive analytics."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes and Container Orchestration","description":"Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, or cluster management. Understanding of operational challenges, cost implications, and optimization opportunities in containerized environments."}
- {"name":"FinOps and Cost Optimization Tools","description":"Direct experience building or working with FinOps platforms, cost allocation tools, or chargeback systems. Familiarity with common challenges in cloud cost management and industry best practices."}
- {"name":"CI/CD and DevOps Infrastructure","description":"Experience building or operating CI/CD systems, deployment infrastructure, and observability platforms at scale. Understanding of how infrastructure decisions impact organizational efficiency and cost."}
- {"name":"Big Data and Analytics Systems","description":"Background with big data technologies, data warehouses, analytics platforms, or time-series databases. Experience with data modeling for analytical workloads and performance optimization."}
- {"name":"Open Source Contribution","description":"Active participation in open-source projects, particularly in cloud infrastructure, data systems, or DevOps tooling. Demonstrates commitment to engineering excellence and community engagement."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Prometheus","description":"Monitoring and observability platform for tracking cloud costs, usage metrics, and infrastructure performance. Standard choice for operational visibility."}
- {"name":"Grafana","description":"Visualization and dashboarding platform for displaying cost insights and trends. Essential for making cost data accessible to stakeholders."}
- {"name":"Terraform","description":"Infrastructure-as-Code tool for managing cloud resources and infrastructure. Important for understanding cloud deployment and cost optimization practices."}
- {"name":"AWS","description":"Primary cloud provider for many Snowflake deployments. Deep understanding of AWS services, cost models, and optimization strategies advantageous."}
- {"name":"Git","description":"Version control system standard across Snowflake engineering. Fundamental tool for code management and collaboration."}

### others

- {"name":"Machine Learning for Cost Optimization","description":"Understanding of ML techniques for anomaly detection, forecasting, and predictive cost analytics. Ability to work effectively with data scientists and ML engineers."}
- {"name":"Cloud Cost Accounting Practices","description":"Knowledge of cloud cost accounting methodologies, chargeback models, and FinOps best practices. Understanding of how to attribute costs to business units and optimize spending."}
- {"name":"Distributed Tracing and Observability","description":"Experience implementing end-to-end observability for distributed systems including tracing, metrics, and logging. Essential for debugging and optimizing complex cost attribution pipelines."}
- {"name":"API Design and Development","description":"Strong principles in designing clean, scalable APIs that serve both internal and external consumers. Understanding of versioning, backwards compatibility, and developer experience."}

### databases

- {"name":"Snowflake","description":"Cloud data warehouse platform and home to Snowflake's core product. Understanding the platform and its cost model essential for leading cloud efficiency initiatives."}
- {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Reliable relational database often used for operational systems, cost metadata, and resource registry storage. Common choice for backend system data."}
- {"name":"Cassandra","description":"Distributed NoSQL database suitable for high-throughput time-series data and cost event storage. Handles massive scale with high availability requirements."}
- {"name":"ClickHouse","description":"Columnar database optimized for analytics and time-series data analysis. Excellent choice for cost attribution queries and analytics at massive scale."}

### languages

- {"name":"Go","description":"Preferred language for building high-performance, scalable backend services and infrastructure tooling at Snowflake. Commonly used for cloud systems and microservices architecture."}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Essential for data pipeline development, analytics, machine learning integration, and cost analysis scripts. Widely used across data engineering and data science initiatives."}
- {"name":"Java","description":"Common backend language for large-scale distributed systems and data processing. Solid foundation in JVM ecosystem beneficial for understanding complex systems."}
- {"name":"SQL","description":"Critical for cost data modeling, analytics, and reporting. Foundational skill for any role dealing with large-scale data systems and cost attribution."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Core platform for Snowflake's container orchestration and internal infrastructure. Understanding cluster management, resource scheduling, and cost optimization essential for the role."}
- {"name":"Apache Spark","description":"Leading distributed data processing framework used for large-scale ETL and data pipeline processing. Common in cost analysis and data transformation workloads."}
- {"name":"Kafka","description":"Event streaming platform for real-time data processing and cost event pipelines. Important for understanding high-throughput data ingestion and stream processing."}
- {"name":"gRPC","description":"High-performance RPC framework for building efficient backend services and internal APIs. Modern alternative to REST for system-to-system communication."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Competitive Equity and Stock Options","description":"Participate in Snowflake's growth through meaningful equity grants and stock option programs, aligning your success with company performance."}
- {"name":"Comprehensive Health Coverage","description":"Medical, dental, and vision insurance with flexible plan options and low employee contributions. HSA and FSA programs available for tax-advantaged savings."}
- {"name":"Retirement Planning","description":"401(k) plan with company matching contributions to support long-term financial security and retirement planning."}
- {"name":"Generous Time Off","description":"Unlimited paid time off policy, paid holidays, and flexible work arrangements to maintain work-life balance and support personal well-being."}
- {"name":"Professional Development","description":"Learning and development budget, conference attendance support, and internal training programs to accelerate career growth and technical skills."}
- {"name":"Parental Leave","description":"Paid parental leave programs for all parents, supporting family planning and work-life integration."}
- {"name":"Mental Health and Wellness","description":"Comprehensive mental health support including counseling services, stress management programs, and fitness benefits."}
- {"name":"Flexible Work Environment","description":"Remote work options and flexible office hours supporting productivity and personal circumstances."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 280000
- **min:** 200000
- **currency:** USD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

## Full description
At Snowflake, we are powering the era of the agentic enterprise. To usher in this new era, we seek AI-native thinkers across every function who are energized by the opportunity to reinvent how they work. You don’t just use tools; you possess an innate curiosity, treating AI as a high-trust collaborator that is core to how you solve problems and accelerate your impact. We look for low-ego individuals who thrive in dynamic and fast-moving environments and move with an experimental mindset — who rapidly test emerging capabilities to discover simpler, more powerful ways to deliver results. At Snowflake, your role isn't just to execute a function, but to help redefine the future of how work gets done.

**Engineering Manager, Cloud Efficiency**

Snowflake runs large scale cloud infrastructure to deliver its own service — production and internal deployments, Kubernetes fleets, CI/CD, etc. Our cloud spend is in billions of dollars per year. We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the **Cloud Efficiency** engineering team. In this role, you will own the technical vision and execution for building a unified, self-serve cloud efficiency platform along with AI skills and agents that makes resource usage and spend attributable and governable while driving insights and optimization of our cloud spend.

  
AS AN ENGINEERING MANAGER IN CLOUD EFFICIENCY, YOU WILL:

* **Lead and grow** our talented team of software engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning.
* **Drive the roadmap** for Cloud Efficiency — translating company-level spend objectives into engineering systems: authoritative cost data, resource ownership registry, attribution pipelines, cost and unit economics modeling, observability, governance policies, and optimization workflows — in partnership with Product, Engineering, Finance, and Data Science.
* **Set technical strategy** for backend systems, data pipelines, and APIs that measure, attribute and surface cost and usage insights at massive scale.
* **Own delivery end-to-end**: from planning and scoping to design reviews, execution, launch, and iterations based on customer feedback.
* **Partner cross-functionally** with other engineering and cross functional teams to ensure smooth integrations and end customer success.
* **Represent your team** in broader technical discussions, contributing to Snowflake engineering-wide initiatives and best practices.

**We are looking for candidates with:**

* 9+ years of software engineering experience, with **3+ years in an engineering management role** leading teams in designing and building large scale systems in production.
* Strong technical foundation in distributed systems, data engineering, or cloud-native backend development.
* Demonstrated ability to define and execute multi-quarter technical roadmaps while balancing short-term delivery and long-term platform health.
* Experience building cost management, budgeting, billing or FinOps tooling in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
* Experience with anomaly detection, time-series analysis, or ML-driven cost optimization products.
* Excellent communication skills: able to distill complex technical problems for executive audiences and motivate engineers around a shared vision.
* Track record of hiring, growing, and retaining strong engineering talent.
* Strong hands-on skills. Can drill deep into complex system designs and implementation.
* BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.

Snowflake is growing fast, and we’re scaling our team to help enable and accelerate our growth. We are looking for people who share our values, challenge ordinary thinking, and push the pace of innovation while building a future for themselves and Snowflake.

How do you want to make your impact?

For jobs located in the United States, please visit the job posting on the Snowflake Careers Site for salary and benefits information: [careers.snowflake.com](http://careers.snowflake.com)