Level

Snowflake

Software Engineer - Database Engineering

Snowflake is hiring a Software Engineer - Database Engineering in Menlo Park, United States. It pays $160k-$230k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Snowflake.

Level's read on this job

  • Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
  • Tools and skills the posting cites include Java, C++ and Linux.
  • Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
  • Level lists 354 other open roles at Snowflake.

AI in this role

Design and develop petabyte-scale cloud database systems at Snowflake with a focus on high-performance data processing.

javacpplinux
distributed-systemsdatabase-engineeringquery-optimization

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’re hiring talented Software Engineers to join the Snowflake Database Engineering team! In this role you will work directly with our team to evolve our elastic, large scale, high-performance data processing system. We need smart engineers who can pick up and understand complex technical areas quickly – and who are enthusiastic about building new technologies!

AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER AT SNOWFLAKE, YOU WILL:

  • Design, develop, and support a petabyte-scale cloud database that is highly parallel and fault-tolerant.

  • Build high-quality and highly reliable software to meet the needs of some of the largest companies on the planet.

  • Analyze and understand performance and scalability bottlenecks in the system and solve them.

  • Pinpoint problems, instrument relevant components as needed, and ultimately implement solutions.

  • Design and implement novel query optimization or distributed data processing algorithms which allow Snowflake to provide industry leading data warehousing capabilities.

  • Design and implement the new service architecture required to enable the Snowflake Data Cloud

  • Develop tools for improving our customers' insights into their workloads.

OUR IDEAL SOFTWARE ENGINEER WILL HAVE:

  • 2+ years industry experience working on commercial or open-source software.

  • Fluency in Java or C++.

  • Familiarity with development in a Linux environment.

  • Excellent problem solving skills, and strong CS fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.

  • Systems programming skills including multi-threading, concurrency, etc.

  • Experience with implementation testing, debugging and documentation.

  • Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Software Engineering or related field; Masters or PhD preferred.

  • Ability to work on-site in our Menlo Park / Bellevue / Berlin office.

BONUS POINTS FOR EXPERIENCE WITH THE FOLLOWING:

  • SQL or other database technologies including internal design and implementation.

  • Query optimization, query execution, compiler design and implementation.

  • Experience with internals of distributed key value stores like FoundationDB and storage engines like RocksDB, InnoDB, BerkeleyDB etc.

  • Experience with MySQL, PostgreSQL internals

  • Data warehouse design, database systems, and large-scale data processing solutions like Hadoop and Spark.

  • Large scale distributed systems, transactions and consistency models.

  • Experience in database replication technology

  • Big data storage technologies and their applications, e.g., HDFS, Cassandra, Columnar Databases, etc.

Every Snowflake employee is expected to follow the company’s confidentiality and security standards for handling sensitive data. Snowflake employees must abide by the company’s data security plan as an essential part of their duties. It is every employee's duty to keep customer information secure and confidential.

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

Software Engineer - Database Engineering at Snowflake rates 20 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ 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

Distributed SystemsDatabase EngineeringQuery OptimizationJavaC++Linux

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

This job starts at
$160k
Typical software engineer job
$168k

This posting starts 5% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
  2. Tell me about a project where database engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
  3. Tell me about a project where query optimization was part of your work. What did you do?
  4. What's a project where you used Java hands-on?
  5. Walk me through how you've used C++ in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Database Engineering, Query Optimization, Java, and C++. 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.

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