Principal Data Platform Engineer Streaming Architect

Snowflake; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Snowflake is seeking a Principal Engineer for the Data Platform team to drive streaming ingestion and transformations at cloud scale. You will set technical direction, resolve complex bottlenecks, and elevate the entire engineering organization.

Expect to lead architecture reviews, mentor senior engineers, and collaborate with product and infrastructure leadership while delivering hands-on work in the most critical areas.

Qualifications

• 14+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in distributed systems.
• Demonstrated track record of defining and delivering platform-scale technical initiatives.
• Expert-level knowledge of streaming and/or batch data systems (Flink, Spark, or equivalent), with specialized knowledge in incremental materialization algorithms.

Responsibilities

• Drive the technical strategy and architecture for key Data Platform initiatives, focusing heavily on real-time data movement and incremental processing.
• Lead design reviews and set engineering standards across teams.
• Identify and resolve high-impact technical challenges and systemic bottlenecks to reduce latency and improve the efficiency of dynamic tables at cloud scale.
• Mentor and grow senior engineers; raise the engineering bar.
• Partner closely with product and infrastructure leadership on roadmap and direction.
• Continuous hands-on technical deliverables in the most critical areas.

Skills

Distributed systems

Streaming data platforms

Real-time processing

Technical leadership

Mentoring engineers

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in CS/CE

Tools

Flink

Spark

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Job description

Snowflake is seeking a Principal Engineer for the Data Platform team to drive streaming ingestion and transformations at cloud scale. You will set technical direction, resolve complex bottlenecks, and elevate the entire engineering organization.

Expect to lead architecture reviews, mentor senior engineers, and collaborate with product and infrastructure leadership while delivering hands-on work in the most critical areas.