Director of Engineering, Frontier Engineering
Snowflake is hiring a Director of Engineering, Frontier Engineering for a remote role open to applicants in Australia. Level rates it ; you can apply on Snowflake.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- This is listed as a remote role.
- The posting mentions Databricks, Snowpark and Snowflake Cortex AI among its tools and skills.
- Snowflake has 353 other open roles on Level.
- Posted in the last few days.
AI in this role
Director of Engineering leading a forward-deployed engineering team building production AI and data applications on Snowflake.
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.
Frontier Engineering is Snowflake's forward deployed engineering practice: senior engineers and engineering leaders who embed with our most strategic customers to build on the AI Data Cloud and turn ambitious ideas into production outcomes. As Director of Engineering, you will build and scale a world-class team of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs). You will operate with executive presence in front of customers while staying close enough to the work to raise the engineering bar.
AS A DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING AT SNOWFLAKE, YOU WILL:
Lead a sizeable, multi-country engineering organization
Set the technical and operating vision for Frontier Engineering: how FDE teams scope, build, and ship on Snowflake capabilities such as Snowpark, Cortex AI, and Snowflake Horizon
Serve as a senior customer-facing leader, partnering directly with customer executives to shape engineering engagements and earn trust as a hands-on technical leader, not only a relationship owner
Attract and hire exceptional engineering talent, drawing on your own network to fill open roles, and coach and develop managers and senior engineers to build a durable, high-performing, engineering-first culture across multiple countries and time zones
Partner with Sales, Product, and the global Frontier Engineering organization to connect customer needs to product direction and real engineering outcomes
OUR IDEAL DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING WILL HAVE:
12+ years of software engineering experience with significant time leading engineering teams, including managing managers
A genuine engineering foundation: you have built and shipped production software and can set a high technical bar and oversee delivery
Proven experience building or scaling Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) style teams, or embedded engineering teams that build directly with and for customers
Strong customer-facing executive presence, with a track record of working directly with customer executives and winning technical credibility
Experience leading engineering organizations across multiple countries and time zones, ideally across APJ
Demonstrated ability to attract senior engineering talent through an established network
Comfort with ambiguity and organizational change: you have reshaped, consolidated, or transformed teams and defined structure where none existed
Experience with cloud data platforms, AI/ML, or modern data and application development
BONUS POINTS FOR THE FOLLOWING:
Hands-on familiarity with Snowflake or comparable cloud data and AI platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks)
Experience building with GenAI and agentic application patterns in production
WHY JOIN OUR TEAM AT SNOWFLAKE?
Frontier Engineering sits at the leading edge of how customers adopt the AI Data Cloud, pairing deep engineering talent with the most strategic accounts. This is a rare opportunity to shape a new engineering-first practice from a position of real ownership: you will define the organization, build the team, and set the bar for how Snowflake engineers alongside its customers. You will have the backing of a global Frontier Engineering organization and the mandate to build something lasting.
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
How we rate this
Director of Engineering, Frontier Engineering at Snowflake rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where engineering management was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where forward deployed engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where ai systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Software Engineering, Engineering Management, Forward Deployed Engineering, AI Systems, and Distributed Systems. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
Want an expert to read your CV for this job?
Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.
Get new remote software engineering jobs (Builds AI ●●●●) by email
One email a week with the new remote software engineering jobs (Builds AI ●●●●), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.
Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.
Similar roles
Software Engineering roles that build AI, at other companies.
What kind of AI work fits you?
Answer 12 practical questions in about three minutes. Get a simple profile, the work it points to, and live roles to explore next.
Find my next step