Senior Software Engineer - Warehouse
Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time
Opens Snowflake's application page
Role
What you'll do.
Senior Software Engineer at Snowflake focused on backend distributed systems powering the Warehouse UX pod—a mission-critical platform component driving customer value and revenue. This role requires 4-7 years of experience independently leading medium-sized projects while contributing to larger cross-team initiatives involving warehouse features, billing, metering, and operational reliability at scale. Ideal candidates bring strong systems thinking, production incident experience, and expertise in distributed backend systems within cloud data platforms.
Responsibilities
- Design and Operate Distributed Backend Systems: Design, build, test, deploy, and operate backend software and distributed systems that power Snowflake Warehouses at scale, ensuring high reliability and performance across mission-critical infrastructure.
- Lead Medium-Sized Engineering Projects: Own medium-sized engineering projects independently from technical design through production deployment and iteration, ensuring delivery meets quality, scalability, and business impact standards.
- Develop Warehouse Capabilities: Build and evolve capabilities spanning warehouse features, billing systems, metering functionality, and usability improvements that directly impact customer value and revenue.
- Optimize System Reliability and Performance: Improve the reliability, scalability, performance, and operational health of warehouse systems in production through performance tuning, architectural improvements, and proactive monitoring.
- Execute Full Software Lifecycle: Work across the complete software development lifecycle including technical design reviews, implementation, comprehensive testing, production rollout, on-call participation, incident triage, and follow-through on production improvements.
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner closely with engineers, product managers, and adjacent teams to deliver durable technical solutions addressing customer needs and business objectives.
- Technical Decision Making: Make thoughtful technical tradeoffs between development speed, code quality, maintainability, and long-term architectural health when designing systems and solutions.
- Production Incident Response: Apply strong debugging and systems thinking to resolve complex production issues, conduct root cause analysis, and implement improvements to prevent future incidents.
- Technical Leadership and Mentoring: Raise technical standards through rigorous design reviews, thorough code reviews, operational rigor, and clear technical communication with peers and stakeholders.
- AI-Assisted Engineering Workflows: Strategically apply AI-assisted development tools and workflows where they demonstrably increase engineering leverage, development speed, or code quality without compromising technical judgment.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Backend Distributed Systems Development
Proven experience designing, building, and operating backend or distributed systems in production environments with experience optimizing for reliability, scalability, and performance.
Modern Programming Languages
Strong programming and debugging skills in one or more modern languages such as Java, Go, Python, Rust, or C++, with ability to write clean, maintainable, production-grade code.
Software Design and Architecture
Solid understanding of software design principles, architectural patterns, and systems thinking applied to complex backend systems, including consideration of performance, reliability, and maintainability.
Production Operations and Incident Response
Hands-on experience with on-call participation, production support, incident response, and operational excellence for live systems, including monitoring, logging, and debugging production issues.
SDLC Best Practices
Comprehensive understanding of the complete software development lifecycle including design, implementation, testing strategies, deployment practices, and operational monitoring.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or related technical field from an accredited institution.
Equivalent Practical Experience
Equivalent professional software engineering experience demonstrating mastery of core computer science concepts and systems-level programming.
Experience
4-7 Years Software Engineering Experience
4 to 7 years of professional software engineering experience with demonstrated progression, autonomous project ownership, and technical contribution to larger initiatives.
Medium-Sized Project Leadership
Proven ability to independently execute on medium-sized engineering projects from conception through completion, demonstrating end-to-end ownership and delivery capability.
Cross-Team Technical Collaboration
Demonstrated success contributing as a strong technical partner on larger, cross-team projects requiring coordination, technical negotiation, and integration across boundaries.
Production Systems at Scale
Hands-on experience with backend systems serving production traffic at meaningful scale, with understanding of performance implications, reliability requirements, and operational challenges.
Skills
Required
Backend System Design
Ability to architect scalable, reliable backend systems with appropriate data structures, algorithms, and design patterns that balance performance with maintainability.
Distributed Systems
Understanding of distributed systems concepts including consistency models, fault tolerance, replication, and coordination challenges in production environments.
Technical Communication
Strong ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly through written design documents, verbal explanations, and code, facilitating collaboration across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Problem Solving and Debugging
Exceptional debugging capabilities and analytical problem-solving approach to isolate root causes, implement targeted fixes, and prevent recurrence of production issues.
Collaborative Working Style
Demonstrated low-ego, collaborative approach to working with teammates, receptiveness to feedback, and ability to build trust through technical credibility and reliability.
Customer-Oriented Thinking
Understanding of how technical decisions impact customer experience, usability, and business outcomes, with ability to balance user needs against technical constraints.
Systems Thinking
Ability to understand complex systems holistically, trace dependencies and information flow, and predict ripple effects of changes across interconnected components.
Code Quality and Best Practices
Commitment to writing maintainable, well-tested code with clear documentation, conducting thorough code reviews, and enforcing quality standards across the team.
Preferred
Cloud Infrastructure Platforms
Nice to haveExperience working with cloud infrastructure platforms, containerization technologies like Kubernetes, or infrastructure-as-code patterns used in modern distributed systems.
Data Platform Systems
Nice to haveFamiliarity with data warehousing, analytics platforms, data pipeline architecture, or related backend systems that process large-scale data workloads.
Billing and Metering Systems
Nice to havePrior experience designing or maintaining billing, usage metering, pricing control plane systems, or revenue-critical platform capabilities.
High-Performance Systems
Nice to haveExperience optimizing performance-sensitive systems or working in highly reliable production environments where downtime carries significant customer or business impact.
Ambiguity Navigation
Nice to haveDemonstrated comfort breaking down vague or ambiguous technical requirements into well-defined problems, designing solutions, and iterating based on feedback.
AI-Assisted Development
Nice to havePractical experience integrating AI code generation tools, large language models, or AI-assisted development workflows into engineering practices while maintaining code quality and security.
Advanced Degrees
Nice to haveMaster's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or related technical field demonstrating advanced theoretical and systems knowledge.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 200,000 – 287,500
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Equity Compensation
Meaningful stock option grants providing ownership stake in Snowflake, aligning personal success with company growth and long-term value creation.
Comprehensive Health Insurance
Competitive medical, dental, and vision coverage with multiple plan options designed to meet diverse employee healthcare needs.
Retirement Planning
401(k) retirement savings plans with employer matching contributions to help build long-term financial security and retirement readiness.
Paid Time Off
Generous vacation, sick leave, and personal time policies supporting work-life balance and employee wellness throughout the year.
Professional Development
Learning and development resources, conference attendance support, and tuition reimbursement for certifications and continuing education.
Flexible Work Arrangements
Work flexibility and remote work options enabling engineers to balance productivity with personal circumstances and life goals.
Mental Health Support
Employee assistance programs, counseling services, and mental health resources supporting employee wellbeing and stress management.
Parental Leave
Comprehensive parental leave policies supporting employees during family transitions and new parenthood.
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Screening
Recruitment team conducts initial phone screening to assess background, experience with backend systems, and overall alignment with role requirements and team culture.
- 02
Technical Coding Interview
Live coding session evaluating problem-solving approach, algorithm selection, code quality, and ability to communicate thinking clearly during development of non-trivial backend system problems.
- 03
Systems Design Interview
Whiteboard or collaborative design interview where candidates architect distributed backend systems, discuss tradeoffs between consistency and availability, scalability approaches, and production considerations.
- 04
Backend Engineering Deep Dive
Technical conversation with senior backend engineers on the Warehouse UX pod covering past system design experiences, production incident handling, debugging approaches, and architectural decision-making.
- 05
Cross-Functional Collaboration Interview
Conversation with product manager, analytics engineer, or adjacent team member assessing communication skills, customer empathy, and ability to collaborate across functions on complex problems.
- 06
Leadership and Culture Alignment
Discussion with engineering manager or team lead exploring technical leadership approach, working style, growth mindset, and alignment with Snowflake's culture of low-ego collaboration and AI-native thinking.
Full posting
Original listing.
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.
Senior Software Engineer, Warehouse UX
About Snowflake
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 do not just use tools; you bring an innate curiosity and treat AI as a high-trust collaborator that is core to how you solve problems, deepen your technical leverage, and accelerate your impact. We look for low-ego individuals who thrive in dynamic, fast-moving environments and operate with an experimental mindset, rapidly testing emerging capabilities to uncover simpler, more powerful ways to deliver results. At Snowflake, your role is not just to execute within a function, but to help redefine how world-class engineering teams build, operate, and innovate.
About the Role
We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer to join the Warehouse UX pod at Snowflake. This team owns critical warehouse capabilities spanning features, billing, and usability across the warehouse experience. Warehouses are one of the most mission-critical parts of Snowflake’s platform and a major revenue driver for the company, making this an opportunity to work on high-impact systems at significant scale.
Despite the UX pod name, this is not a front-end role. This team builds backend distributed systems that power warehouse behavior, customer-facing warehouse capabilities, metering and billing-related functionality, and the reliability and usability of core warehouse workflows.
This role is best suited for an engineer with 4 to 7 years of experience who can independently drive medium-sized projects end to end, contribute effectively to larger cross-team efforts, and bring strong technical judgment to systems that matter deeply to customers and the business.
What You Will Do
Design, build, test, deploy, and operate backend software and distributed systems that power Snowflake Warehouses.
Own medium-sized engineering projects independently from design through delivery, and contribute to larger initiatives across the warehouse organization.
Build and evolve capabilities related to warehouse features, billing, and usability.
Improve the reliability, scalability, performance, and operational health of warehouse systems in production.
Work across the full software lifecycle, including technical design, implementation, testing, rollout, on-call participation, issue triage, and follow-through on production improvements.
Partner closely with engineers, product managers, and adjacent teams to deliver durable solutions to customer and business problems.
Make thoughtful tradeoffs between speed, quality, maintainability, and long-term architectural health.
Use strong debugging and systems thinking to resolve complex production issues and improve service behavior over time.
Raise the bar through design reviews, code reviews, operational rigor, and clear technical communication.
Apply AI-assisted workflows where they increase engineering leverage, speed, or quality without compromising judgment.
What We Are Looking For
BS in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
4 to 7 years of professional software engineering experience.
Strong programming, debugging, and software design skills in one or more modern languages.
Experience building and operating backend or distributed systems in production.
Ability to independently execute on medium-sized projects and deliver them to completion.
Ability to contribute as a strong technical partner on larger, cross-team projects.
Solid understanding of the software development lifecycle and engineering best practices across design, implementation, testing, deployment, and operations.
Experience participating in on-call, production support, or incident response for live systems.
Strong communication skills and a collaborative, low-ego working style.
A customer-oriented mindset and good judgment about reliability, usability, and business impact.
Preferred Qualifications
Master's or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field.
Experience with distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, data platforms, or large-scale backend services.
Experience working on billing, metering, control plane systems, or customer-facing platform capabilities.
Familiarity with performance-sensitive or highly reliable production environments.
Comfort navigating ambiguity and breaking down complex technical problems into practical solutions.
Curiosity about new technologies and comfort using AI tools as part of an effective engineering workflow.
Why This Role
The Warehouse UX pod owns an especially important part of Snowflake’s platform: the capabilities customers use to control, understand, and get value from their warehouses. You will work on systems tied directly to customer experience, product usability, and business outcomes, while helping evolve infrastructure that runs at Snowflake scale.
Closing
If you are excited to build backend distributed systems for one of Snowflake’s most critical product areas, and want to have outsized impact on a platform that powers customer workloads every day, we would love to hear from you.
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
Redirects to Snowflake's application page.
Other roles
More at Snowflake.
Software Engineer AI Team
Mid
Staff/Principal AI Software Engineer - Snowflake CoWork
Principal
Sr Manager, Applied Field Engineering - AI/ML
Manager
Principal Data Platform Architect
Principal
Senior Software Engineer - NatSec
Senior