# Engineering Manager
**Company:** [Snowflake](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/snowflake)
Lead the Snowflake Postgres team as an Engineering Manager to architect and build a fully managed, cloud-native Postgres service integrated with Snowflake's data platform. This strategic role combines deep technical leadership of distributed dataplane and orchestration systems with team management, requiring expertise in large-scale database systems, cloud infrastructure, and team development to deliver a foundational enterprise product.
**Role:** Engineering Manager
**Seniority:** Manager
**Locations:** US-CA-Menlo Park
**Salary:** 236000–339250 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/snowflake/906a4bc8-b5f6-4a35-bf97-fa6d9e694893)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/snowflake/engineering-manager
---
## Responsibilities

- Technical Leadership & Architecture: Provide strong technical direction for the Postgres dataplane and orchestration/control plane architecture, ensuring the fully managed cloud-native service delivers reliability, performance, and scale. Drive architectural decisions balancing consistency, performance, scaling limits, and operational costs.
- Managed Service Excellence: Architect and ensure operational readiness of the managed Postgres service across all critical dimensions: high availability setups, automated upgrades, backup/restore systems, elastic scaling, operational safety, and automation. Meet customer commitments regarding durability, availability, performance, and security SLAs.
- Team Management & Development: Build, lead, and develop a high-performing engineering team responsible for product delivery. Focus on hiring world-class talent, providing mentorship, setting clear expectations, fostering psychological safety, and creating career growth opportunities within the team.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Break down complex problems and build consensus across multiple stakeholder teams including product, infrastructure, security, and customer success. Drive alignment on roadmap priorities and influence technical decisions across organizational boundaries.
- Product Strategy & Roadmap Ownership: Function as both problem-finder and problem-solver by building the product roadmap while delivering it. Balance long-term architectural vision with immediate business needs, prioritizing high-impact features that accelerate enterprise adoption of managed Postgres.
- Problem-Solving at Scale: Tackle real business challenges by applying sophisticated software engineering and analytical problem-solving skills. Navigate trade-offs between different constraints to build resilient solutions that meet the demands of rapidly growing services and large-scale customer deployments.
- Customer Focus & Real-World Integration: Work closely with customers and partners to deeply understand their use cases, requirements, and pain points. Translate customer feedback into strategic product improvements while maintaining focus on solving the right problems at the right time with technical rigor.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Related Degree","description":"BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent discipline providing strong foundational knowledge in algorithms, systems, and software architecture"}
- {"name":"Equivalent Professional Experience","description":"Demonstrated mastery through 10+ years of professional experience in large-scale systems engineering can substitute for formal degree requirements"}

### technical

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Architecture","description":"Master-level knowledge of consistency protocols, replication, consensus algorithms, failover mechanisms, and scaling patterns in production systems"}
- {"name":"Cloud Service Operations","description":"Demonstrated expertise operating services on AWS, Azure, or GCP with high availability (99.95%+ SLA), automated operations, monitoring, and incident response"}
- {"name":"Database Internals Understanding","description":"Solid grasp of database concepts including ACID compliance, transaction isolation levels, query optimization, indexing strategies, and backup/recovery mechanisms"}
- {"name":"System Design & Trade-offs","description":"Ability to evaluate and balance competing concerns including consistency vs performance, scaling limits vs operational complexity, and feature velocity vs technical debt"}
- {"name":"Production Reliability Engineering","description":"Hands-on experience with monitoring stacks, alerting systems, incident response procedures, RCA processes, and operational automation"}

### experience

- {"name":"Large-Scale Systems Development","description":"10+ years architecting and building enterprise-grade distributed systems, with proven ability to deliver systems handling millions of concurrent operations"}
- {"name":"Engineering Team Leadership","description":"3+ years directly managing engineering teams responsible for design and delivery; experience managing other managers is a significant advantage"}
- {"name":"Production Operations & SLA Management","description":"Proven track record owning systems in production with accountability for durability, availability, performance, and security SLAs to paying customers"}
- {"name":"Cloud Platform Development","description":"Significant experience developing services on public cloud platforms with emphasis on high availability, auto-scaling, multi-region deployment, and cost optimization"}
- {"name":"PostgreSQL or Database Experience","description":"Hands-on operational or development experience with PostgreSQL, or equivalent depth with another enterprise relational database system"}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Leadership","description":"10+ years architecting and operating large-scale distributed systems including databases, cloud services, or infrastructure platforms at enterprise scale"}
- {"name":"Engineering Team Management","description":"3+ years building and leading high-performing engineering teams with demonstrated ability to grow talent, set technical vision, and deliver on roadmaps"}
- {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure Expertise","description":"Significant hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP building highly available services with operational rigor, monitoring, and disaster recovery"}
- {"name":"Database Systems Knowledge","description":"Strong understanding of database fundamentals including consistency models, performance optimization, scaling limits, and cost-benefit tradeoffs"}
- {"name":"Hands-On Technical Depth","description":"Comfort navigating complex codebases, designing system architectures, and implementing critical components in production environments"}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Collaboration","description":"Proven ability to drive alignment across teams, influence across organizational boundaries, and build consensus on technical decisions"}
- {"name":"Production Operations","description":"Track record of delivering resilient, durable systems with strong operational readiness, on-call practices, and customer SLA commitments"}

### preferred

- {"name":"PostgreSQL Expertise","description":"Deep hands-on experience with Postgres as end user, operator, or administrator; working knowledge of Postgres internals, query planner, and storage engine"}
- {"name":"Managed Service Experience","description":"Background building or operating fully managed cloud services including HA setup, automated upgrades, backup/restore, scaling, and multi-tenant isolation"}
- {"name":"Team Leadership at Scale","description":"Experience leading managers or managing multiple engineering teams with responsibility for technical hiring, onboarding, and team growth"}
- {"name":"Data Warehouse Familiarity","description":"Understanding of modern cloud data platforms, analytics workloads, and how operational databases integrate with data ecosystems"}
- {"name":"Open Source Contribution","description":"Active involvement with PostgreSQL or similar large open-source projects demonstrating deep technical credibility and community engagement"}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"AWS / Azure / GCP","description":"Cloud platform experience for building and operating managed services"}
- {"name":"Monitoring & Observability Tools","description":"Prometheus, Grafana, or similar for operational metrics and alerting"}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems Tooling","description":"Consensus algorithms, replication frameworks, and failover mechanisms"}
- {"name":"CI/CD Pipelines","description":"GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar for automated testing and deployment"}

### others

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Architecture","description":"Design patterns for reliability, consistency, and high-availability systems"}
- {"name":"High Availability & Disaster Recovery","description":"Backup, replication, failover, and recovery mechanisms for production systems"}
- {"name":"Data Platform Integration","description":"Experience integrating with modern data warehouses and cloud-native architectures"}

### databases

- {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Enterprise-grade relational database with advanced features and transaction processing"}

### languages

- {"name":"C/C++","description":"Primary language for Postgres internals and high-performance system components"}
- {"name":"Go","description":"Used for cloud service orchestration, control plane systems, and distributed infrastructure"}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Automation, operational tooling, and infrastructure-as-code scripts"}
- {"name":"Java","description":"Enterprise service integration and cross-platform compatibility"}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Postgres Core","description":"Deep knowledge of Postgres database engine, query planner, and storage architecture"}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration for managed service deployment and scaling"}
- {"name":"Terraform","description":"Infrastructure-as-code for cloud resource provisioning and management"}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Cloud Data & AI Platform Impact","description":"Build an industry-leading cloud data and AI platform alongside world-class engineers. Contribute to a product used by thousands of enterprises for mission-critical analytics and data operations."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership Opportunity","description":"Shape the architecture and technical direction of one of Snowflake's most strategic new products. Push the boundaries of what a modern Postgres experience can deliver in the cloud."}
- {"name":"World-Class Team Culture","description":"Join a team of both industry veterans and rising engineering stars operating at the highest technical standards. Collaborate with engineers who bring deep expertise in distributed systems, databases, and cloud infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Solving Complex Technical Problems","description":"Engage with challenging problems spanning security, distributed systems architecture, parallel processing, resource management, large-scale system maintenance, and operational excellence."}
- {"name":"Growth & Career Acceleration","description":"Fast-growing company with clear advancement opportunities. Build your leadership brand by delivering a strategic product and mentoring the next generation of engineering leaders."}
- {"name":"AI-Native Work Environment","description":"Collaborate with teams embracing AI as a high-trust collaborator for accelerating innovation. Participate in Snowflake's mission to power the era of the agentic enterprise with emerging AI capabilities."}

## Compensation

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

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Recruiter Screening Call","description":"Initial 30-minute conversation with hiring recruiter to discuss background, interest in the Engineering Manager role at Snowflake, leadership philosophy, and alignment with the Postgres product vision."}
- {"name":"Technical Discussion with Hiring Manager","description":"Detailed technical conversation (60 minutes) covering distributed systems architecture, database fundamentals, large-scale system design, trade-off analysis, and your approach to technical problem-solving as an engineering leader."}
- {"name":"Leadership & Team Management Interview","description":"Behavioral and situational interview (60 minutes) assessing team building, people development, conflict resolution, cross-functional collaboration, and your track record delivering large-scale projects with engineering teams."}
- {"name":"System Design Deep Dive","description":"Collaborative session (90 minutes) designing a complex distributed system or discussing your architectural approach to building a managed database service, including handling reliability, scaling, operational concerns."}
- {"name":"Postgres Domain Expert Conversation","description":"Technical discussion (45 minutes) with senior database engineer or architect exploring your PostgreSQL knowledge, operational experience, and understanding of database internals relevant to building a managed Postgres offering."}
- {"name":"Executive Stakeholder Conversation","description":"Discussion (45 minutes) with senior engineering or product leadership regarding product vision, cross-functional strategy, your management approach, and long-term goals for the Postgres service at Snowflake."}

## 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.

Snowflake is about empowering enterprises to achieve their full potential — and people too. With a culture that’s all in on impact, innovation, and collaboration, Snowflake is the sweet spot for building big, moving fast, and taking technology — and careers — to the next level.

Snowflake is reimagining what a modern Postgres experience can be. The Snowflake Postgres team is building a fully managed, cloud-native Postgres service that delivers the reliability, performance, and scale developers expect that is paired with a data experience that seamlessly ties into Snowflake.

As an Engineer Manager, you'll help define the architecture, push the boundaries of Postgres in the cloud, and shape one of Snowflake's most strategic new products

### 

### **AS AN ENGINEERING MANAGER AT SNOWFLAKE YOU WILL:**

* Provide strong technical leadership across both the Postgres dataplane and the orchestration/control plane required to deliver a managed service (HA, upgrades, backups, scaling, automation, and operational safety).
* Break problems down and build consensus across multiple parties to reach solutions that are scalable, tractable, and timely.
* Function as both a problem solver and a problem finder by building the roadmap while delivering it.
* Leverage your experience to balance long-term thinking with more immediate business needs.
* Understand trade-offs between consistency, performance, scaling limits, and costs to build solutions which can meet the demands of rapidly growing services.
* Ensure operational readiness of the services and meet the commitments to our customers regarding durability, availability, performance, and security.
* Solve real business needs at large scale by applying your software engineering and analytical problem solving skills.

### **OUR IDEAL ENGINEERING MANAGER WILL HAVE:**

* 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale systems (distributed systems, databases, or cloud services).
* 3+ years of experience building, managing, and leading high-performing engineering teams (and experience leading managers is a strong plus).
* Strong track record of delivering large-scale, resilient systems and services in production.
* Significant experience in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, and/or GCP) and building services with high availability and operational rigor.
* Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to drive cross-functional alignment and influence across org boundaries.
* Strong hands-on technical ability; comfortable navigating complex codebases and diving deep into system design and implementation.
* BS/MS in Computer Science or related majors, or equivalent experience.
* Postgres depth: experience with Postgres as an end user, operator, or administrator; strong understanding of database fundamentals and tradeoffs (consistency, performance, scaling limits, cost).

  * OR
* Love of Postgres. You have worked with Postgres as an end user or administrator. You have a solid understanding of database fundamentals.

### **WHY JOIN THE ENGINEERING TEAM AT SNOWFLAKE?**

* Build an industry-leading Cloud Data and AI Platform.
* Solve challenging technical problems related to security, parallel and distributed systems, programming, resource management, large-scale system maintenance, and more!
* Work closely with our customers & partners, understand their use cases & needs, think strategically to seek the right problem to solve at the right time, and innovate with rigor.
* Join a world-class team of both industry veterans and rising stars.

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)