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.
Observe by Snowflake is an AI-powered observability platform built on the Snowflake AI Data Cloud and engineered for scale. We ingest and store logs, metrics, traces, and events on an open, scalable data lakehouse, using open formats like Apache Iceberg, at dramatically lower cost. A dynamic Context Graph and chat-based AI SRE provide rich context and automated workflows so teams can move from detection to root cause of production issue and resolution 10x faster.
Leading engineering teams at companies like Capital One, Topgolf, and Dialpad rely on Observe to troubleshoot hundreds of terabytes of telemetry daily while maintaining reliability at enterprise scale. As part of Snowflake, Observe combines startup-style ownership and velocity with the global reach, operational excellence, and ecosystem of one of the world’s leading data platforms.
The RoleYou'll be our dedicated expert in query execution and query performance. That means owning the query execution service end-to-end: working on caching strategies, incremental execution, query rewrites, and other optimizations that directly affect the speed and cost of running Observe at scale. You'll also be the go-to resource when query latency issues arise during customer evaluations and new deal cycles, diagnosing root causes quickly and driving lasting fixes.
This is a high-ownership, high-impact role. You'll partner closely with Snowflake's engineering and product teams to surface gaps and advocate for platform improvements that benefit Observe, and work across our backend systems to close performance gaps before they become customer problems.
You'll excel here if you're equally comfortable doing rigorous performance analysis at scale (across millions of queries) and diving into the mechanics of a single slow query to find the fix.
What You'll DoOwn and evolve the query execution service, including query caching, incremental execution, query rewrites, and decomposition strategies
Systematically analyze large volumes of user and system-generated queries to identify performance bottlenecks and drive improvements
Investigate and resolve customer-reported query latency issues, including acting as a first responder during new deal evaluations where query performance is under scrutiny
Work on automated tuning of system parameters to reduce query execution times and costs
Partner with Snowflake engineering and product teams to advocate for platform improvements, communicate requirements clearly, and drive resolutions
Propose, scope, and deliver improvements to the query execution pipeline with attention to both short-term fixes and long-term architecture
5+ years of industry experience building distributed systems
Hands-on experience working below the query interface, on the execution machinery itself (e.g., query planning, caching, rewrite rules, execution engines)
Proven ability to diagnose and resolve database performance issues at scale, including both systematic analysis across large query populations and deep-dive debugging of individual cases
Strong understanding of algorithms, distributed systems architecture, and backend infrastructure
Ability to rapidly onboard to complex, unfamiliar systems and deliver meaningful improvements
Customer-focused mindset: able to translate user-reported performance problems into technical root causes and durable fixes
Strong communication skills for working with internal and external stakeholders (including partner engineering teams at Snowflake)
Experience with Snowflake or other cloud data warehouses
Prior work on observability, monitoring, or telemetry platforms
Experience with OLAP query optimization, columnar storage, or vectorized execution
Advanced degree in Computer Science with a focus on databases or systems
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
Skills Required
- 5+ years of industry experience building distributed systems
- Hands-on experience working below the query interface
- Proven ability to diagnose and resolve database performance issues at scale
- Strong understanding of algorithms, distributed systems architecture
- Ability to rapidly onboard to complex, unfamiliar systems
- Strong communication skills for working with internal and external stakeholders
Snowflake Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Snowflake and has not been reviewed or approved by Snowflake.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered competitive across many roles, and the company highlights structured practices aimed at pay equity. Total compensation is often described as strong at senior levels when equity and bonuses are included.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants and an ESPP are standard, making ownership accessible and a meaningful part of total rewards. New-hire RSUs and ongoing equity alongside bonus/commission programs are emphasized.
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Healthcare Strength — Comprehensive medical coverage is offered with programs like Lyra providing up to 25 no-cost therapy/coaching sessions, alongside HSA-eligible plans. Wellness resources and additional clinical programs (such as Omada for certain conditions) broaden the scope of support.
Snowflake Insights
What We Do
Snowflake powers the end-to-end data lifecycle – from ingesting and processing data to analyzing and modeling it, to building and sharing data and AI applications – helping engineers, analysts, and leaders innovate faster and achieve more with their data. We're on a mission to empower every enterprise to achieve its full potential through data and AI.
Why Work With Us
Snowflake is where data does more, and so do you. More innovating, more growing, and more collaborating. Here, you’ll find the sweet spot between building big and moving fast, in technology and your career.
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