Software Engineer Intern - Zurich (2026)

Snowflake; Zürich; On-site; CHF 22,000 - 36,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid internship

Career growth

Startup culture

Mentor access

Flexible hours

Casual dress code

Remote work options

Job summary

Snowflake Observe by Snowflake offers a paid, full-time internship in a fast-moving software environment in Zürich. You will work on ground-breaking infrastructure and contribute to a real system used by customers.

We seek students actively enrolled in a college program, with a completed BS and advancing MS/PhD. Proficiency in C++ or Golang, data structures and algorithms, and teamwork is required. The program includes mentorship, flexible hours, and potential full-time opportunities.

Qualifications

• Actively enrolled in an accredited college/university during the internship.
• Completed BS degree; MS/PhD in progress is a plus.
• Majors: CS, CE, EE, Physics, Math, or related field.
• Required coursework: algorithms, data structures, and operating systems.
• Recommended coursework: Database systems, distributed systems, cloud computing, compilers.
• Bonus: research/publications in databases or distributed systems and open source contributions.
• Experience with big data (engineering/processing) and data migration.
• Duration: 4–12 months (6 months recommended); start Jan 2027+.

Skills

C++

Golang

Data structures

Algorithms

English

Teamwork

Systems programming

Education

Completed BS degree

MS or PhD in progress

Tools

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Job description

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 Data Cloud and engineered for scale. We ingest and store logs, metrics, traces, and events on an open, scalable data lake using open formats like Apache Iceberg, delivering deep correlation and long-term analytics at dramatically lower cost. A dynamic Knowledge Graph and chat-based AI SRE provide rich context and guided workflows so teams can move from detection to root cause and resolution significantly faster.

The Infrastructure team at Observe by Snowflake is responsible for building, scaling, and operating the development and production environments that power our observability platform. We are a small, highly collaborative team with a broad scope, focused on delivering reliable infrastructure while continuously improving the systems that support our engineers and customers.

We’re looking for dedicated students who share our passion for ground-breaking technology and want to create a lasting future for you and Snowflake.

WHAT WE OFFER :

• Paid, full-time internships in the heart of the software industry

• Post-internship career opportunities (full-time and/or additional internships)

• Exposure to a fast-paced, yet fun, startup culture

• A chance to work with world-class experts on challenging projects

• Opportunity to provide meaningful contributions to a real system used by customers

• High level of access to supervisors (manager and mentor), detailed direction without

• micromanagement, feedback throughout your internship, and a final evaluation

• Stuff that matters: treated as a member of the Snowflake team, included in company

• meetings/activities, flexible hours, casual dress code, accommodations to work from

• home, swag and much more

• Catered lunches, access to gaming consoles, recreational games, happy hours,

• company outings, and more

• Embraced as a full member of the diverse Snowflake engineering team

WHAT WE EXPECT :

• Must be actively enrolled in an accredited college/university program during the time of the internship

• Required: A completed BS degree, with an MS or PhD in progress

• Desired Majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Math, or related field

• Required coursework: algorithms, data structures, and operating systems

• Recommended coursework: Database systems, distributed systems, cloud computing, compilers

• Bonus experience: Research or publications in databases or distributed systems and contributions to open source.

• Experience working with big data (engineering / processing) and data migration

• Duration: 4–12 months (6 months recommended) start date flexible

• Target start dates: January 2027 and onward

• Excellent programming skills in C++ or Golang

• Knowledge of data structures and algorithms

• Strong problem solving and ability to learn quickly in a dynamic environment

• Fluent English language skills (oral and written)

• Experience with working as a part of a team

• Dedication and passion for technology

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

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN/GAIN :

• How to build enterprise grade, reliable, and trustworthy software/services

• Exposure to SQL and/or other database technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop)

• Understanding of database internals, large-scale data processing, observability space, distributed systems, warehouse scheduling

• Implementation, testing of features in metrics processing, warehouse scheduling, query execution

• Experience working with cloud infrastructure, AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud in particular

• Learning about cutting edge database technology and research

POSSIBLE TEAMS/WORK FOCUS AREA :

• Data management from ingestion to customer-defined batch-streaming

• Data processing control plane from language compilation to warehouse execution

• Metrics product feature development

• Enterprise feature development

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