Software Engineer- Postgres

SnowflakeYesterday

Location

US-CA-Menlo Park

Type

Full Time

Salary

USD 160,000 – 230,000

Level

Mid

Role

Backend Engineer

Posted

Jul 24, 2026

Full TimeMid

The role

Summary

Join Snowflake's Postgres team to build the control plane and user model that powers managed PostgreSQL experiences within Snowflake's cloud platform. This backend engineering role focuses on designing distributed systems, database infrastructure, and operational excellence for provisioning, lifecycle management, and security of Postgres instances. You'll tackle complex challenges at the intersection of infrastructure, distributed systems, and security while working with a collaborative team on a strategic product expansion into transactional and operational database workloads.

What you'll do

Design and build backend services for PostgreSQL provisioning: Architect and develop production-grade backend services that enable customers to provision, deploy, and configure Snowflake Postgres instances at scale. Focus on creating robust APIs and service endpoints that abstract complexity while maintaining reliability and performance.

Develop access control and user management features: Build the authorization layers, access control models, and user management systems that allow secure administration of Postgres instances. Implement role-based access control (RBAC) and secure administrative workflows that balance security with operational simplicity.

Improve reliability and observability of asynchronous workflows: Enhance the observability, monitoring, and resilience of background systems and asynchronous workflows that maintain service health. Implement comprehensive logging, tracing, and alerting to enable rapid incident detection and resolution.

Partner across technical and product domains: Collaborate with product managers, security engineers, and adjacent engineering teams to design customer-centric solutions that simplify complex infrastructure. Participate in design reviews and architectural discussions to ensure cohesive platform experiences.

Drive production incident resolution and operational excellence: Investigate production issues, participate in on-call rotations, and implement lasting fixes that reduce operational burden and improve system resilience. Build automation and monitoring to prevent recurring issues and enhance platform reliability.

Contribute to technical excellence and team growth: Lead technical design discussions, conduct thorough code reviews, and mentor junior engineers. Help establish engineering standards and best practices that raise the quality bar across the team while fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

What we look for

Technical

Strong programming proficiencyDemonstrated expertise in one or more backend languages: Java, Go, C++, or Python. Production experience building and maintaining complex systems using these languages.

Computer science fundamentalsDeep understanding of concurrency models, networking protocols, API design patterns, and data structures. Ability to reason about distributed systems, fault tolerance, and consistency models.

Production systems experienceProven track record designing, building, and operating reliable services in production environments. Experience with debugging complex issues, implementing monitoring and observability, and managing incident response.

Cross-functional collaborationDemonstrated ability to work effectively across engineering boundaries, including product, security, and infrastructure teams. Strong communication skills for translating between technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Education

Computer Science or related degreeBS or MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field. Equivalent professional experience and demonstrated expertise in backend systems can substitute for formal education.

Experience

Backend or infrastructure engineering2+ years of professional experience building production software in backend systems, infrastructure, or distributed systems environments. Experience should demonstrate ability to design scalable systems and handle operational complexity.

Service design and operationsHands-on experience designing and operating reliable services at scale. This includes implementing health checks, handling graceful degradation, and managing service upgrades with minimal downtime.

Skills

Required skills

Backend development languagesProduction-level expertise in Java, Go, C++, or Python for building scalable backend systems and microservices.

Distributed systems designUnderstanding of distributed systems principles including consensus algorithms, eventual consistency, failure detection, and recovery mechanisms.

API design and implementationExperience designing RESTful or gRPC APIs with proper error handling, versioning, and documentation. Ability to design APIs that scale and maintain backward compatibility.

Database fundamentalsUnderstanding of relational database concepts including schemas, transactions, indexes, query optimization, and connection pooling.

Service observability and monitoringHands-on experience implementing logging, metrics collection, distributed tracing, and alerting systems. Ability to diagnose production issues using observability tools.

System reliability engineeringExperience building for reliability including implementing retries, circuit breakers, load balancing, and graceful degradation patterns.

Nice to have

PostgreSQL and database internalsExperience with PostgreSQL architecture, query execution, transaction isolation levels, or optimization. Familiarity with managed database platforms.

Identity and authorization systemsExperience implementing identity management, RBAC systems, OAuth, or other security-sensitive authentication and authorization mechanisms.

Cloud infrastructure platformsHands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP including compute, networking, storage, and managed services. Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools.

Workflow orchestration and control planesExperience building or operating control plane systems, workflow orchestration platforms, or highly asynchronous service architectures. Knowledge of state machines and long-running operations.

Kubernetes and container technologiesFamiliarity with Kubernetes, Docker, or container orchestration platforms for managing distributed systems and microservices deployments.

Compensation & benefits

Salary

USD 160,000 – 230,000 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Strategic product impact

Work on a high-priority initiative that expands Snowflake's market presence into transactional and operational database workloads, complementing the existing analytics platform.

Technical complexity and growth

Tackle diverse engineering challenges spanning distributed systems, database infrastructure, security, and operational excellence. Opportunities to deepen expertise in multiple domains.

Meaningful ownership and autonomy

Own significant components of the control plane and user model with clear impact on customer experience. Influence product direction and architectural decisions.

Collaborative team environment

Work with experienced engineers, product managers, and security specialists. Strong mentorship opportunities and emphasis on raising team technical standards through code review and knowledge sharing.

Production-scale learning opportunities

Build systems serving millions of customers at massive scale. Learn operational excellence, incident response, and reliability engineering practices from a world-class team.

Career development and advancement

Clear paths for growth from Mid to Senior to Staff engineer roles. Opportunities to lead technical initiatives and mentor junior engineers.

Interview process

1
Initial recruiter screening — Telephone or video call with a recruiter to discuss your background, experience with backend systems, and familiarity with any related technologies. Typically 30 minutes focused on understanding your career trajectory and interest in the role.
2
Technical phone screen — First technical conversation with an engineer focused on your experience with distributed systems, programming language proficiency, and approach to system design. May include whiteboarding on a problem related to service architecture or database management.
3
System design interview — Deep dive into your ability to design scalable backend systems. Expected to discuss trade-offs between consistency and availability, service partitioning, data replication strategies, and operational concerns like monitoring and incident response.
4
Coding interview — Technical assessment of coding proficiency in your preferred language (Java, Go, C++, or Python). Focus on problem-solving approach, code quality, and ability to discuss complexity and optimization. Typically 45-60 minutes with follow-up questions on edge cases.
5
Infrastructure and operations panel — Interview with engineers focused on production systems experience. Discussion of incidents you've investigated, how you approach reliability engineering, monitoring strategies, and on-call experiences.
6
Cross-functional collaboration interview — Conversation with product managers or security engineers to assess your ability to work across boundaries. Discussion of how you approach requirements gathering, communicate technical constraints, and balance competing priorities.
7
Team fit and final discussion — Meeting with the team lead or manager to discuss team culture, growth opportunities, and career expectations. Opportunity to ask detailed questions about the roadmap and working environment.