Scale Engineer

Software Engineer

Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time

US-WA-BellevueUSD 160k – 230k2d ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Join Snowflake's Snowpark Container Service team to design and build a fully managed, Kubernetes-based container compute platform that enables seamless data processing within the Data Cloud. This role requires a senior-level engineer with 4+ years of experience in distributed systems and large-scale infrastructure development, combining hands-on coding expertise in Java, C++, or Go with architectural leadership and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

  • Design and Develop Platform Features: Design and implement features for the Snowpark Container Service platform while understanding customer requirements, business objectives, and market positioning. Develop solutions that address the needs of enterprise customers deploying containerized workloads at scale within Snowflake's data cloud infrastructure.
  • Lead Engineering Team and Strategy: Lead and mentor a team of software engineers, providing technical guidance, code review oversight, and career development support. Establish technical direction and strategy for critical product areas, making architectural decisions that balance performance, reliability, and scalability for the container compute platform.
  • End-to-End Project Ownership: Own all aspects of project delivery including system design, implementation, code reviews, testing strategy, observability infrastructure, tooling development, and on-call support. Manage the complete lifecycle from conception through production deployment and operational excellence.
  • Build Reliable Distributed Systems: Develop highly reliable and fault-tolerant software systems capable of serving Snowflake's largest enterprise customers. Implement robust error handling, failover mechanisms, and distributed consensus patterns to ensure system stability across multi-region deployments.
  • Ensure Operational Excellence: Drive operational readiness and maintainability with emphasis on reliability, availability, debuggability, and performance optimization. Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting systems. Define and maintain service level objectives (SLOs) and error budgets for the container platform.
  • Develop Kubernetes-Native Container Platform: Design and build features for a Kubernetes-based, OCI-compliant container compute platform that scales elastically to meet evolving business and customer requirements. Implement resource orchestration, scheduling optimization, and workload isolation capabilities that enable customers to execute compute workloads seamlessly alongside their data.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work collaboratively across multiple engineering teams and business functions within Snowflake. Coordinate with security, platform, data engineering, and product teams to ensure the container service integrates seamlessly with the broader Snowflake ecosystem and maintains security and compliance standards.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Distributed Systems Architecture

    Deep expertise in designing and implementing distributed systems, including understanding of consistency models, consensus algorithms, fault tolerance, and scalability patterns. Experience with challenges like network partitions, Byzantine failures, and eventual consistency.

  • Kubernetes and Container Orchestration

    Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes, including cluster management, resource scheduling, networking, storage provisioning, and operators. Understanding of container runtime interfaces (CRI), container network interfaces (CNI), and OCI specifications.

  • Large-Scale Infrastructure Development

    Proven track record building and operating infrastructure platforms serving millions of requests or managing massive data volumes. Experience with cloud-native architecture patterns, microservices, and managing platform reliability at scale.

  • Systems Programming Languages

    Production-level proficiency in Java, C++, or Go. Experience with memory management, concurrency patterns, performance optimization, and systems-level programming required for high-performance backend services.

  • Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps

    Hands-on experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), container registries, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code tools, and deployment automation. Understanding of cloud resource management and cost optimization.

  • Observability and Performance Optimization

    Expert-level knowledge of monitoring, logging, tracing, and profiling systems. Experience implementing comprehensive observability for distributed systems, performance benchmarking, and optimization in production environments.

Education

  • Computer Science Foundation

    Strong fundamentals in computer science including data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and networks. Understanding of computational complexity, design patterns, and software architecture principles essential for systems engineering.

Experience

  • 4+ Years Large-Scale Systems Development

    Minimum 4 years of professional experience building features and capabilities for large-scale distributed systems or infrastructure platforms. Track record of shipping production systems that handle significant scale, complexity, and availability requirements.

  • Team Leadership and Mentorship

    Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams, mentoring junior engineers, and establishing technical standards. Success in guiding technical strategy and architectural decisions for product areas impacting multiple teams.

  • Operational Responsibilities

    Experience owning operational aspects of systems including on-call support, incident response, postmortem analysis, and continuous improvement. Comfort with production support responsibilities and troubleshooting complex distributed system failures.

  • Cross-Functional Project Delivery

    Track record of collaborating effectively across engineering teams, product management, and business stakeholders. Experience translating business requirements into technical solutions and managing complex projects with multiple dependencies.

Skills

Required

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Ability to architect and implement systems that operate across multiple machines with emphasis on consistency, availability, partition tolerance, and scalability patterns.

  • Java, C++, or Go

    Production-grade proficiency in at least one of these systems programming languages with deep understanding of language-specific concurrency models and performance characteristics.

  • Kubernetes Platform Development

    Hands-on experience developing for Kubernetes or building Kubernetes-native applications, including experience with custom resource definitions, operators, and cluster-level architecture.

  • Large-Scale System Architecture

    Expertise in architecting backend systems designed to handle massive throughput, storage, or user populations with emphasis on performance, reliability, and operational efficiency.

  • Cloud-Native Architecture

    Deep understanding of cloud-native design patterns, containerization strategies, microservices decomposition, and deployment models that leverage cloud infrastructure capabilities.

  • Performance Optimization

    Demonstrated ability to identify performance bottlenecks through profiling and monitoring, and implement optimization strategies that achieve measurable improvements in latency, throughput, or resource utilization.

Preferred

  • Container Runtime Experience

    Nice to have

    Experience with container runtimes, OCI specifications, or container security. Familiarity with containerd, runc, or other low-level container technologies.

  • Data Warehouse or Analytics Platform

    Nice to have

    Background working on data platforms, data warehouses, or analytics systems. Understanding of data processing architectures and the challenges of operating at data warehouse scale.

  • Machine Learning Infrastructure

    Nice to have

    Experience building infrastructure for machine learning workloads, model serving, or AI-native applications. Understanding of ML-specific compute requirements and resource management.

  • Service Mesh and Advanced Networking

    Nice to have

    Hands-on experience with service meshes like Istio or Envoy, advanced networking patterns, load balancing strategies, or network security in containerized environments.

  • Infrastructure Automation

    Nice to have

    Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform, Helm, or Pulumi. Experience with GitOps workflows and infrastructure automation at scale.

  • Security and Compliance

    Nice to have

    Knowledge of container security, network policies, RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), secrets management, and compliance frameworks relevant to managed cloud services.

Tech stack

Languages

JavaC++GoPython

Frameworks

KubernetesSpring BootEnvoygRPC

Databases

Cloud Storage (S3/GCS)Distributed DatabasesTime-Series Databases

Tools

PrometheusGrafanaDockerHelmGitJenkins or CircleCI

Other

Linux and Operating SystemsDistributed Consensus AlgorithmsAPI Design and REST/gRPCCloud Security and Compliance

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 160,000 – 230,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Comprehensive Health Coverage

    Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans with company contributions. Access to mental health resources and wellness programs designed for tech professionals.

  • Retirement Planning

    401(k) matching program enabling employees to build long-term wealth and retirement security with competitive contribution rates.

  • Generous Paid Time Off

    Flexible paid time off policy with ample vacation days, sick leave, and company holidays. Opportunity to maintain work-life balance while contributing to impactful projects.

  • Stock Options and Equity

    Equity grants providing ownership stake in Snowflake's continued growth. Opportunity to participate directly in company success as a public organization.

  • Professional Development and Learning

    Educational stipends for conferences, training, and certifications. Internal learning programs and mentorship opportunities to advance technical expertise and career growth.

  • Remote and Flexible Work

    Flexible working arrangements balancing office collaboration with remote work options. Note: This specific role requires on-site presence in downtown Bellevue office for collaboration and team cohesion.

  • Innovation and Impact

    Opportunity to work on early-stage, critical product initiatives with outsized impact on Snowflake's growth trajectory. Access to cutting-edge cloud technologies and industry-leading infrastructure challenges.

  • Collaborative Culture

    Team-oriented environment emphasizing transparency, knowledge sharing, and mutual support. Regular team events and cross-functional collaboration opportunities that foster innovation and camaraderie.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Phone Screening

    Initial conversation with recruiter to discuss background, experience with distributed systems and Kubernetes, career motivations, and alignment with role requirements. Typically 30 minutes to assess cultural fit and technical foundation.

  2. 02

    Technical Phone Screen

    Deep-dive technical conversation with engineer covering distributed systems design, system architecture decisions, and problem-solving approach. Discussion of past projects, technical trade-offs, and handling of large-scale system challenges.

  3. 03

    System Design Interview

    Design a large-scale distributed system or container platform component under interview conditions. Demonstrates ability to handle complexity, make architectural trade-offs, and communicate technical decisions clearly to peers.

  4. 04

    Behavioral and Leadership Interview

    Conversation exploring team leadership experience, collaboration across functions, mentorship philosophy, and conflict resolution. Assesses cultural alignment with Snowflake's values and cross-functional work environment.

  5. 05

    Final On-Site Interview

    In-person visit to downtown Bellevue office with additional technical interview, manager interview, and leadership team conversation. Opportunity to meet team members, discuss technical strategy, and gain deeper insight into company culture and product direction.

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 looking for a talented and passionate Software Engineer for our Snowpark Container Service, part of our Snowflake Compute Platform - to build our elastic, high-scale, high-performance, cloud native compute platform to enable bringing Compute to Data effortless and simple.

Snowpark Container Services is a fully managed container offering that helps our customers easily deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications without having to move data out of Snowflake. As a fully managed service, it comes with Snowflake security, configuration, and operational best practices built in. You will be part of this highly productive, fast moving, and growing team that is critical to realizing Snowflake’s Data Cloud Mission.

AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER, YOU WILL:

  • Design and develop features, understand customer requirements and meet business goals.

  • Lead a team of engineers, including mentoring and guiding them, and build technical direction and strategy for large and critical parts of the product surface area.

  • Manage all aspects of the Project, including Design, Coding, Reviews, Testing, Observability, Tooling and On-Call support.

  • Build highly reliable and fault-tolerant software to meet the needs of the largest customers.

  • Ensure operational readiness and maintainability of the service with heavy focus on reliability, availability, debuggability and performance.

  • Design and build Kubernetes based OCI compliant container compute platform features and capabilities that scale and evolve with changing business and customer needs.

  • Snowpark Container Services is still in an early stage of development - it is an amazing opportunity for outsized impact on Snowflake’s growth story.

OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL HAVE MOST OF THE FOLLOWING QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Excitement to learn new things - passion to learn and grow are keys to success on this team.

  • Be a team player - Our team culture is a priority. Transparency, knowledge sharing, fun events, and helping each other are all part of our work environment

  • Work across functions and across teams - we don’t only work on code that we own, we work with other parts of Snowflake every day.

  • 4+ years of industry experience building features and capabilities of large scale systems or infrastructure level platforms.

  • Extremely strong fundamental computer science skills and experience building distributed systems.

  • Hands-on coding experience in Java, C++ or Go is highly desirable

  • Ability to work on-site in our downtown Bellevue office.

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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