Senior Software Engineer - Warehouse UX

Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time

US-CA-Menlo ParkUSD 200k – 288k3d ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Senior Software Engineer role on Snowflake's Warehouse UX team, responsible for designing and operating backend distributed systems that power warehouse capabilities, billing, and usability at scale. This 4-7 year experience level position involves owning medium-sized projects end-to-end while contributing to larger cross-team initiatives in a mission-critical platform that generates significant revenue. The role emphasizes strong technical judgment, systems thinking, and collaboration across the full software lifecycle from design through production operations.

Responsibilities

  • Design and Build Distributed Warehouse Systems: Design, build, test, and deploy backend distributed systems that power Snowflake's warehouse infrastructure, ensuring high performance and reliability at scale across mission-critical platform components.
  • Own Medium-Sized Projects Independently: Drive medium-sized engineering projects end-to-end from technical design through delivery and production rollout, demonstrating ability to independently manage project scope, execution, and quality without extensive oversight.
  • Develop Warehouse Feature Capabilities: Build and evolve warehouse-specific features, billing functionality, metering systems, and usability enhancements that directly impact customer experience and business revenue generation.
  • Optimize System Reliability and Performance: Improve reliability, scalability, performance, and operational health of warehouse systems in production through continuous monitoring, optimization, and proactive issue resolution.
  • Execute Full Software Lifecycle Responsibilities: Manage technical design, implementation, testing, rollout strategy, on-call participation, incident triage, and follow-through on production improvements across the complete development lifecycle.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with engineers, product managers, and adjacent teams to deliver durable solutions that address both customer needs and business objectives.
  • Drive Technical Excellence: Raise the bar through design reviews, code reviews, operational rigor, and clear technical communication, establishing and maintaining high standards across the team.
  • Production Systems Debugging and Troubleshooting: Apply strong debugging and systems thinking skills to resolve complex production issues, improving service behavior and platform stability over time.
  • AI-Assisted Engineering Practices: Leverage AI-assisted workflows and tools where they increase engineering leverage, speed, or quality without compromising technical judgment or decision-making autonomy.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Strong Programming and Software Design

    Advanced proficiency in one or more modern programming languages with demonstrated ability to design clean, maintainable, and performant software architectures.

  • Debugging and Systems Troubleshooting

    Expertise in debugging complex systems and applying systems thinking to diagnose root causes, trace dependencies, and implement lasting solutions in production environments.

  • Software Development Lifecycle Knowledge

    Solid understanding of complete software development lifecycle including technical design patterns, implementation practices, testing strategies, deployment methodologies, and operational monitoring.

  • Technical Design and Architectural Thinking

    Ability to make informed tradeoffs between speed, quality, maintainability, and long-term architectural health when designing systems and solutions.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

    BS in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical software engineering experience demonstrating comparable technical depth and problem-solving capabilities.

Experience

  • 4-7 Years Professional Software Engineering

    4 to 7 years of hands-on professional software engineering experience building production systems, with demonstrated track record of delivering quality software solutions.

  • Backend and Distributed Systems Production Experience

    Proven experience building and operating backend or distributed systems in production environments, including exposure to scalability, reliability, and operational concerns at scale.

  • Medium-Scale Project Execution

    Ability to independently execute on medium-sized projects from conception through completion, managing technical decisions and delivery outcomes with minimal supervision.

  • Production Support and On-Call Experience

    Experience participating in on-call rotations, production support, or incident response for live systems, demonstrating comfort with operational responsibility and urgent problem-solving.

  • Cross-Functional Project Collaboration

    Track record of contributing as a strong technical partner on larger, cross-team projects that require coordination and communication across organizational boundaries.

Skills

Required

  • Backend Systems Development

    Proficiency in building scalable backend services and distributed systems, with strong understanding of concurrency, state management, and system design principles.

  • Cloud Infrastructure and Distributed Computing

    Experience working with cloud platforms and distributed systems patterns, including microservices, data consistency, and fault tolerance mechanisms.

  • Production Systems Ownership

    Demonstrated ownership mentality for production systems including monitoring, alerting, incident response, and continuous improvement of system health and reliability.

  • Software Design and Architecture

    Ability to design software systems with attention to scalability, reliability, maintainability, and performance requirements specific to enterprise platforms.

  • Collaborative Engineering Communication

    Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to clearly articulate technical decisions, tradeoffs, and architectural rationale to diverse technical audiences.

Preferred

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platforms

    Nice to have

    Deep experience with distributed systems design, cloud infrastructure architecture, or large-scale data processing platforms similar to Snowflake's technology stack.

  • Billing and Metering Systems

    Nice to have

    Prior experience building or maintaining billing, metering, usage tracking, or control plane systems that directly impact revenue and customer operations.

  • High-Performance Production Environments

    Nice to have

    Familiarity with performance-sensitive or highly reliable production environments where latency, throughput, and uptime are critical success metrics.

  • Complex Problem Decomposition

    Nice to have

    Demonstrated comfort navigating ambiguity, breaking down complex technical problems into practical solutions, and iterating under uncertainty.

  • Data Warehouse Architecture

    Nice to have

    Knowledge of data warehouse design, query optimization, resource allocation, or warehouse-specific technical challenges within cloud data platforms.

  • Master's or Advanced Technical Degree

    Nice to have

    Master's degree, PhD, or equivalent advanced technical credentials in Computer Science or related field demonstrating research-level technical depth.

Tech stack

Languages

JavaPythonGoSQL

Frameworks

Distributed Systems FrameworksRESTful API Design

Databases

SQL DatabasesCloud Data Warehouses

Tools

Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)Monitoring and Observability ToolsCI/CD and Deployment Systems

Other

Incident Response and On-Call OperationsAI-Assisted Development Workflows

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 200,000 – 287,500

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Comprehensive Health Insurance

    Medical, dental, and vision coverage options designed for comprehensive healthcare protection with multiple plan choices.

  • Retirement Planning

    Competitive 401(k) retirement savings plans with employer matching contributions to support long-term financial security.

  • Stock Options and Equity

    Equity participation in Snowflake's growth as a public cloud computing company, aligning employee interests with company success.

  • Professional Development and Learning

    Opportunities for continuous technical learning, conference attendance, training budgets, and mentorship programs to support career growth.

  • Flexible Work Environment

    Work flexibility and modern workplace arrangements that support work-life balance and individual productivity preferences.

  • Innovation and Cutting-Edge Technology

    Opportunity to work with cloud-scale data platforms, distributed systems, and emerging technologies at the forefront of the industry.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Screening Call

    Preliminary conversation with recruiting team to discuss background, experience level, motivation for the role, and alignment with Snowflake's engineering culture and values.

  2. 02

    Technical Phone Screen

    Technical discussion with an engineer from the Warehouse UX team covering software design fundamentals, systems thinking, debugging approach, and relevant technical experience from past projects.

  3. 03

    System Design Interview

    In-depth technical interview focused on distributed systems design, architectural decision-making, scalability considerations, and approach to solving complex backend engineering challenges.

  4. 04

    Behavioral and Collaboration Interview

    Discussion of past project experiences, collaboration and communication style, handling ambiguity, cross-functional teamwork, and alignment with Snowflake's low-ego, customer-oriented values.

  5. 05

    Engineering Manager Conversation

    Meeting with the team's engineering manager to discuss team dynamics, growth opportunities, current technical challenges, and expectations for the senior engineer role.

  6. 06

    Final Executive Round

    Conversation with senior leadership to assess cultural fit, long-term career aspirations, and vision alignment with Snowflake's strategic direction and engineering excellence standards.

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.

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.

AS A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER AT SNOWFLAKE, YOU WILL:

  • 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.

OUR IDEAL SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER WILL HAVE:

  • 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.

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

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