Senior Engineering Manager - Data Lake

Snowflake; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 264,000 - 396,000; Full time

Job summary

Snowflake, based in Bellevue, WA, seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the Data Lake team, building scalable data platforms with open formats like Iceberg. You will guide architecture, mentor a distributed team, and drive delivery for enterprise customers within the Snowflake Data Cloud.

The role requires strong leadership, deep distributed-systems knowledge, and collaboration with Product and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into impactful engineering work.

Qualifications

• 7+ years designing and building distributed data systems, especially databases.
• 3+ years of software engineering management experience.
• Experience recruiting and growing high-performing technical teams.
• Experience building enterprise-grade software at scale.
• Strong CS fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, distributed systems.
• Fluency in English, excellent communication.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of engineers in design, development, and support of distributed data platforms.
• Drive technical design and roadmap discussions on Query Processing, Metadata Management, and Interoperability.
• Grow a strategic Data Lake/Analytics business area.
• Recruit, mentor, and develop team members across the lifecycle.
• Collaborate with Product and other teams to translate requirements into engineering work.

Skills

Distributed data systems design

Engineering management

Team leadership

Java or C++

Open source collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Apache Iceberg

Apache Polaris

Open source interoperability

Query processing

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.

Engineering Manager - Data Lake

Bellevue, WA - USA

Build the future of the AI Data Cloud. Join the Snowflake team!

We are hiring a dynamic and accomplished Engineering Manager to join our Data Lake team. In this role, you will lead and expand a talented team building on cutting edge open source data lake technologies. You’ll drive innovation, foster collaboration within the open source community, and ensure delivery of robust and scalable solutions for our enterprise customers. You will play a critical role in the growth and success of Snowflake’s business as we shape the future of open data management at scale!

As an Engineering Manager in the Data Lake team, you must possess a strong technical foundation with distributed systems, along with prior experience leading and growing engineering teams. The ideal candidate will demonstrate strong critical thinking, clear communication, and strong decision making skills. If you have this mix of skills, and a passion for working in one of the world’s largest data domains, we’d love to hear from you!

AS AN ENGINEERING MANAGER AT SNOWFLAKE, YOU WILL:

• Lead a team of talented and high-performing engineers in the design, development, and support of highly distributed and scalable data platforms, with a specific focus on optimizing and enabling workloads on top of open table and open catalog formats like Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris (incubating).
• Lead and participate in technical design and roadmap discussions relating to areas like Query Processing, Metadata Management, Performance, Scalability, and Open Source Interoperability
• Have direct ownership to grow a strategic and emerging part of Snowflake’s business to address new and expanding market opportunities in Data Lake and Data Analytics workloads
• Have direct impact on growth and development of your team through the full lifecycle of recruiting, hiring, mentorship, coaching, and identifying growth opportunities
• Demonstrate strong communication skills and the ability to work seamlessly across teams and organizations. Partner well with other leaders in the Engineering and Product organization on rhythms like annual & quarterly planning, staffing, project schedules, resource allocation, and more
• Be comfortable and effective in delegation - effectively leveraging Senior & Principal engineers to maximize your team’s impact
• Know when and how to shift resources across areas to achieve execution goals, while also ensuring effective ownership and longer-term alignment of work and skills
• Translate product requirements into engineering work for your team, partnering closely with peers in Product and other disciplines - to make our vision a reality!
• Use your strong technical foundation to set the bar for your team - build to last, deliver, and keep the quality exceptionally high!
• Foster a healthy and diverse team culture

OUR IDEAL ENGINEERING MANAGER WILL HAVE:

• 7+ years industry experience designing and building distributed data systems, especially with a focus in database systems internals
• 3+ years of software engineering management experience.
• A track record of recruiting, leading, and growing high performing technical teams in a demanding talent market.
• Experience building enterprise grade software - reliable, secure, and trustworthy platforms and distributed systems at large scale
• Excellent problem solving skills, and strong CS fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.
• Proven experience with authoring roadmap documents, project plans and RCAs.
• Fluency in Java or C++.
• Ability to work in a globally distributed team, collaborate well across disciplines, and mentor junior engineers.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills. Outstanding written and oral English language skills.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent
• Ability to work on-site in our Bellevue, WA or Menlo Park, CA office.

BONUS POINTS FOR EXPERIENCE WITH THE FOLLOWING:

• Working with Apache open source projects and open data formats - Parquet, ORC, Avro - as well as with open table format standards - Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake
• Modern data analytics technologies such as Spark, Trino, Presto. Experience with query processing.
• Experience working and building on Data Catalog platforms, Metadata platforms, and Data Governance platforms, such as Unity, Glue, Nessie, Gravitino
• Working with or building Distributed Storage platforms such as AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage, Google Cloud Storage
• Internal design and implementation of query processing systems.

WHY JOIN US?

• Lead and grow an exceptional team of high performing engineers - industry veterans, rising stars - in building game changing capabilities for the industry’s leading data cloud platform.
• Opportunity to join in and take ownership of a fast moving and critical area for the company. Be at the forefront of Snowflake’s open source interoperability roadmap.
• Take charge of your career - this role will push you to grow, both technically as well as a leader, in a supportive leadership environment.

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

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

• The estimated base salary range for this role is $264,000 - $396,000.
• Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Snowflake’s bonus and equity plan.

The successful candidate’s starting salary will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as skills, experience, and geographic location. This role is also eligible for a competitive benefits package that includes: medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance; 401(k) retirement plan; flexible spending & health savings account; at least 12 paid holidays; paid time off; parental leave; employee assistance program; and other company benefits.

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