Scale Engineer

Staff Software Engineer - Metadata

Staff Engineer · Staff · Full Time

US-WA-BellevueUSD 236k – 339k1d ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Staff Software Engineer leading Snowflake's metadata layer—the brain of their AI Data Cloud platform. You'll architect distributed systems handling millions of metadata operations per second, drive cross-region/cross-cloud replication, and mentor senior engineers. This role demands 10+ years of large-scale distributed systems expertise with deep knowledge of consistency, transactions, and fault tolerance.

Responsibilities

  • Lead Core Metadata & Replication System Design: Own architectural decisions for metadata and replication systems across multiple teams. Design systems that handle millions of metadata operations per second while maintaining global consistency and enabling cross-region/cross-cloud failover scenarios.
  • Set Technical Direction for Scalability & Reliability: Establish technical strategy for metadata layer scalability, consistency guarantees, and fault tolerance. Make key decisions around trade-offs between performance, availability, and correctness at planetary scale.
  • Drive Cross-Region & Cross-Cloud Replication: Lead initiatives to optimize disaster recovery capabilities across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Lower Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and maximize reliability to keep customer data continuously available through regional outages.
  • Solve Complex Distributed Systems Problems: Tackle hard technical challenges in performance optimization, high-availability architecture, and correctness verification. Address problems at global scale where failures cascade across metadata-dependent query engines and transaction coordinators.
  • Partner with Product & Architecture Teams: Translate customer requirements and business needs into durable, long-term system designs. Work closely with product management and architecture teams to ensure technical decisions align with strategic platform goals.
  • Raise Operational Excellence Standards: Implement observability frameworks, safe rollout procedures, and blast-radius containment strategies. Establish operational patterns that enable safe deployments while minimizing customer impact from failures.
  • Mentor & Develop Technical Leaders: Guide senior engineers through complex technical problems and help grow the next generation of technical leaders. Provide architectural mentorship and create growth opportunities within the Metadata team.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Distributed Systems Architecture

    10+ years of hands-on experience building and scaling large-scale distributed systems. Deep expertise in designing systems that maintain consistency and handle high concurrency across geographically dispersed infrastructure.

  • Database Internals Knowledge

    Strong foundational understanding of database systems internals including query optimization, transaction processing, MVCC, locking mechanisms, and metadata catalog design.

  • Java or C++ Proficiency

    Production-level expertise in at least one of these systems languages. Ability to write performant, maintainable code for infrastructure systems where performance directly impacts customer experience.

  • Consistency & Transactions Expertise

    Deep understanding of distributed transaction semantics, consistency models (strong, eventual, causal), consensus algorithms, and practical approaches to ensuring correctness in distributed settings.

  • Fault Tolerance & Disaster Recovery

    Proven expertise designing systems resilient to failures including node failures, network partitions, and cascading outages. Knowledge of replication strategies, failover mechanisms, and recovery point/time objectives.

Education

  • Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science

    BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field. Equivalent professional experience demonstrating equivalent depth of foundational knowledge is acceptable.

Experience

  • Leading Multi-Team Technical Initiatives

    Documented record of successfully leading significant technical projects across multiple teams from initial design through production deployment. Experience influencing and aligning stakeholders on complex architectural decisions.

  • High-Scale Systems Production Experience

    Track record shipping and operating distributed systems handling millions of requests or operations per second. Experience managing systems with strict SLAs and understanding operational trade-offs.

Skills

Required

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Architecting systems with consistency guarantees, scalability, and fault tolerance across global deployments

  • Java or C++

    Production-grade proficiency in systems-level programming for infrastructure and database components

  • Database Architecture

    Understanding of metadata management, query compilation, transaction coordination, and catalog systems

  • Technical Leadership

    Ability to lead architectural decisions, mentor senior engineers, and set technical direction across teams

  • Consistency & Fault Tolerance

    Deep knowledge of distributed consistency models, replication strategies, and failure recovery mechanisms

Preferred

  • FoundationDB or Distributed KV Stores

    Nice to have

    Hands-on experience with FoundationDB, RocksDB, or similar distributed key-value storage systems

  • Replication & Disaster Recovery Systems

    Nice to have

    Experience designing or operating geo-distributed replication, cross-region failover, or disaster recovery systems

  • Database Metadata & Catalogs

    Nice to have

    Practical experience building or optimizing database metadata layers, catalog systems, or query compilation engines

  • Multi-Cloud Infrastructure

    Nice to have

    Experience architecting services on AWS, Azure, GCP, or managing cross-cloud deployments and operations

  • Observability & Operational Tools

    Nice to have

    Experience building monitoring, logging, and observability systems for distributed infrastructure

  • Consensus Algorithms

    Nice to have

    Practical knowledge implementing or optimizing Raft, Paxos, or other consensus protocols in production systems

Tech stack

Languages

JavaC++SQL

Frameworks

Distributed Systems Frameworks

Databases

FoundationDBMetadata & Catalog Systems

Tools

AWS, Azure, GCPObservability & Monitoring ToolsCI/CD & Deployment Systems

Other

Distributed Consensus AlgorithmsReplication & Failover ArchitectureTransaction Processing

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 236,000 – 339,200

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Equity & Stock Options

    Competitive equity grants as part of Staff-level compensation, aligning your success with Snowflake's growth

  • Comprehensive Health Insurance

    Medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family, typical of enterprise tech compensation

  • 401(k) Retirement Plan

    Employer-matched 401(k) contributions supporting long-term financial planning

  • Paid Time Off

    Generous PTO policy including vacation days, sick leave, and holidays

  • Professional Development Budget

    Learning and conference attendance budget to stay current with emerging distributed systems research and practices

  • Remote Work Flexibility

    Work arrangements supporting distributed teams across time zones

  • Performance Bonus

    Potential performance-based bonuses tied to company and individual metrics

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Screening Call

    30-minute conversation with recruiter covering background, experience with distributed systems, and interest in Snowflake's metadata challenges

  2. 02

    Technical Architecture Discussion

    1-hour session with a Staff or Principal engineer discussing your approach to distributed system design, specific examples from your experience, and technical depth in consistency/fault tolerance areas

  3. 03

    System Design Deep Dive

    90-minute technical conversation on complex distributed systems problem (likely metadata, replication, or disaster recovery related). You'll discuss design trade-offs, scalability considerations, and how you'd handle production failures

  4. 04

    Code Review & Technical Leadership

    Review of real code from your past projects or discussion of how you'd approach code quality, technical standards, and mentoring practices for a distributed systems team

  5. 05

    Engineering Leadership Interview

    Conversation with an engineering manager or senior leader about team dynamics, how you've grown other engineers, and your vision for setting technical direction

  6. 06

    Executive Alignment

    Final discussion with senior engineering or product leadership to align on strategic vision for metadata systems and your role in Snowflake's platform roadmap

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.

Staff Software Engineer – Metadata

Company Pitch

Snowflake is the AI Data Cloud. Thousands of organizations run their most critical data, analytics, and AI workloads on our platform. We built Snowflake for the cloud from day one: near-unlimited scale, concurrency, and performance. Our goal is to make every organization's data instantly useful and always available.

Team Pitch

The Metadata team owns the brain of Snowflake. Every query, table, transaction, and permission depends on the metadata layer we build. Our systems handle millions of metadata operations per second. We also power cross-region and cross-cloud replication and failover, keeping customer data available through outages. If you want hard distributed-systems problems with direct customer impact, this is the team.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the design of core metadata and replication systems across multiple teams.

  • Set technical direction for scalability, consistency, and fault tolerance of the metadata layer.

  • Drive cross-region and cross-cloud replication toward lower RPO and higher reliability.

  • Solve hard problems in performance, availability, and correctness at global scale.

  • Partner with Product and architects to turn customer needs into durable designs.

  • Raise the operational bar through observability, safe rollouts, and blast-radius controls.

  • Mentor senior engineers and grow technical leaders on the team.

Requirements

Core Requirements:

  • 10+ years building large-scale distributed systems or database internals.

  • Strong development skills in Java or C++.

  • Proven record leading multi-team technical initiatives from design to production.

  • Deep understanding of consistency, transactions, and fault tolerance.

  • BS/MS in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.

Any of the following would make you a stronger candidate:

  • Experience with FoundationDB or other distributed key-value stores.

  • Experience building replication, disaster recovery, or geo-distributed systems.

  • Experience with database metadata, catalogs, or query compilation.

  • Experience running services on AWS, Azure, or GCP.

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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