Senior Software Engineer, Snowpark Container Service

Snowflake5 days ago

Location

US-WA-Bellevue

Type

Full Time

Salary

USD 200,000 – 287,500

Level

Senior

Role

Senior Software Engineer

Posted

Jul 14, 2026

Full TimeSenior

The role

Summary

Senior Software Engineer position at Snowflake focused on designing and developing the Snowpark Container Service, a fully managed Kubernetes-based container platform that enables customers to deploy containerized applications within Snowflake without data movement. This role combines hands-on architecture and development with team leadership, requiring 7+ years of experience building large-scale distributed systems and infrastructure platforms, with strong fundamentals in container orchestration, multi-cloud deployment, and high-performance, fault-tolerant system design.

What you'll do

Design and Develop Product Features: Design and develop scalable features for Snowpark Container Service by understanding customer requirements, translating business goals into technical specifications, and delivering solutions that meet enterprise-scale demands. Balance strategic thinking with hands-on implementation to drive product evolution.

Technical Leadership and Team Mentoring: Lead a team of software engineers through mentoring, guidance, and technical coaching. Define technical direction and strategy for large, critical product surface areas. Foster a culture of excellence while building high-performing teams that ship reliable, maintainable code.

Full Project Lifecycle Ownership: Manage all aspects of projects including system design, implementation, code reviews, comprehensive testing, observability instrumentation, developer tooling, and on-call support. Ensure end-to-end quality and operational responsibility for services in production.

Build Reliable, Fault-Tolerant Systems: Architect and implement highly reliable, fault-tolerant distributed systems designed to serve Snowflake's largest enterprise customers. Design for high availability, graceful degradation, and recovery mechanisms that maintain service integrity under failure scenarios.

Drive Operational Excellence: Ensure operational readiness and maintainability of the Snowpark Container Service with emphasis on reliability, availability, debuggability, and performance. Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting strategies to maintain service health and customer satisfaction.

Kubernetes and Container Platform Development: Design and build features for a Kubernetes-based, OCI-compliant container compute platform that scales with evolving business and customer needs. Implement container orchestration, resource management, and deployment strategies that support multi-tenant workloads at scale.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work across multiple functions and teams throughout Snowflake to integrate Snowpark Container Service with the broader Data Cloud platform. Collaborate with product, infrastructure, security, and customer-facing teams to deliver cohesive solutions and align technical decisions with business objectives.

What we look for

Technical

Hands-On Programming LanguagesStrong hands-on coding proficiency in at least one of: Java, C++, or Go. Demonstrated ability to write efficient, maintainable production-grade code with deep understanding of language-specific idioms, concurrency models, and performance characteristics.

Distributed Systems FundamentalsExtremely strong fundamental computer science skills with expertise in building and operating distributed systems. Proficiency with key concepts including service discovery, load balancing, state management, eventual consistency, and distributed tracing across microservices architectures.

Container Orchestration and DeploymentAdvanced proficiency with Kubernetes cluster management, container networking, storage orchestration, and deployment automation. Experience with tools like Docker, container registries, and deployment frameworks to manage containerized workloads in production environments.

Cloud Platform ServicesStrong working knowledge of major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their container services including ECS, EKS, AKS, GKE. Understanding of managed Kubernetes offerings, infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform or CloudFormation, and cross-cloud deployment patterns.

Observability and DebuggingExpertise in designing observable systems with comprehensive logging, metrics collection, distributed tracing, and alerting strategies. Proficiency with observability tools and the ability to diagnose and resolve production issues in complex, distributed environments.

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related FieldBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent demonstrated experience in software engineering with strong foundational knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and system design principles.

Experience

7+ Years Large-Scale Systems Development7+ years of proven industry experience designing, building, and shipping features for large-scale systems, infrastructure platforms, or cloud services. Demonstrated ability to architect solutions that handle enterprise-scale traffic, data volume, and operational complexity.

Distributed Systems ExpertiseDeep understanding of distributed systems design principles including consistency models, fault tolerance, consensus algorithms, and distributed tracing. Practical experience debugging and optimizing performance in systems with multiple interdependent components across different failure domains.

Kubernetes Platform ExperienceHands-on experience designing, building, or operating products and services on Kubernetes. Understanding of container orchestration, pod scheduling, resource management, networking, storage abstractions, and custom resource definitions (CRDs) to extend platform capabilities.

Multi-Cloud ArchitectureExperience designing and implementing products with multi-cloud support across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Knowledge of cloud-specific abstractions, cross-cloud deployment strategies, and managing cloud-agnostic infrastructure to support diverse customer environments.

Multi-Tenant Systems DesignProven experience implementing multi-tenant systems with focus on performance isolation, security boundaries, resource fairness, and data segregation. Understanding of tenant isolation patterns, quota management, and preventing noisy neighbor problems in shared infrastructure.

Skills

Required skills

Distributed Systems DesignArchitecture and design of distributed systems with focus on scalability, fault tolerance, and consistency. Ability to reason about trade-offs between CAP theorem constraints and implement appropriate patterns for specific use cases.

Kubernetes Administration and DevelopmentHands-on proficiency with Kubernetes architecture including control plane components, node management, pod scheduling, and resource quotas. Experience extending Kubernetes through operators or custom controllers to support specialized platform requirements.

System Reliability EngineeringDeep commitment to building reliable systems with high availability, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation. Ability to design monitoring, alerting, and incident response strategies that maintain service SLAs for enterprise customers.

Multi-Cloud ArchitectureDesign and implementation of platform services that operate consistently across multiple cloud providers. Understanding of cloud-agnostic abstractions and patterns to manage infrastructure diversity.

Multi-Tenant Platform DesignExperience architecting systems that safely isolate workloads from multiple independent tenants while maintaining performance and security. Implementation of quota systems, resource fairness, and isolation mechanisms.

Performance Optimization and DebuggingExpertise in identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in complex systems. Proficiency with profiling tools, distributed tracing, and systematic performance investigation methodologies applicable to large-scale systems.

Production Operations and On-CallExperience operating and maintaining production systems with responsibility for incident response, root cause analysis, and post-mortem processes. Commitment to operational excellence and continuous improvement of system reliability.

Nice to have

Container Registry and Image ManagementExperience with container registries, image scanning, artifact management, and secure image distribution mechanisms. Knowledge of container supply chain security and image signing practices.

Infrastructure-as-Code ToolsProficiency with Terraform, Helm, Kustomize, or similar declarative infrastructure tools for managing Kubernetes deployments and cloud resources at scale with version control and reproducibility.

Database and Data Platform ExperienceBackground working with cloud data platforms, data warehouses, or distributed databases. Understanding of data movement patterns and integration with analytics workloads aligns well with Snowflake's data cloud mission.

API Design and Service DevelopmentExperience designing and implementing scalable APIs including REST, gRPC, or event-driven architectures. Understanding of API versioning, backwards compatibility, and developer experience considerations.

Security in Distributed SystemsKnowledge of security patterns in distributed systems including authentication, authorization, encryption in transit and at rest, and security isolation between tenants in multi-tenant architectures.

Open Source ContributionActive participation in open source projects, particularly those related to cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, or container technologies. Demonstrates collaborative development skills and commitment to community-driven development.

Compensation & benefits

Salary

USD 200,000 – 287,500 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Comprehensive Health Coverage

Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employee and family coverage options. Access to preventative care and wellness programs to support holistic employee health.

Retirement and Financial Planning

401(k) retirement plan with company matching contributions. Access to financial planning resources and investment options for long-term wealth building.

Generous PTO and Paid Leave

Flexible paid time off policy, paid parental leave, and paid sick leave to support work-life balance and family needs. Ability to recharge and maintain personal wellness.

Professional Development and Learning

Opportunities for continuous learning, technical certifications, and conference attendance. Access to educational resources and tuition reimbursement programs to advance your expertise.

Stock Options and Equity

Equity grants in Snowflake providing ownership stake and upside potential. Participate in the company's long-term growth and success through stock-based compensation.

Remote Work Flexibility

Flexible work arrangements and collaboration tools supporting hybrid and distributed team environments. Ability to balance office presence with focused remote work time. Note: This role requires on-site presence in Bellevue, Washington office.

Relocation Assistance

Support and resources for relocating to the Bellevue, Washington area if needed. Assistance with moving expenses and finding housing in the Seattle metropolitan region.

Team Events and Community

Regular team events, celebrations, and community building activities. Access to employee resource groups and networking opportunities within the broader Snowflake organization.

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