Full Job Description
We are hiring a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer for our Frontier Engineering team. This team embeds directly with Snowflake's most strategic customers to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI systems . At the Principal level, you are the senior technical counterpart to CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and chief architects at our largest enterprise customers; you set the technical direction that the Frontier Engineering organization follows.
AS A PRINCIPAL FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEER YOU WILL:
• Be the trusted technical partner to customer engineering leadership: Build durable, peer-level relationships with CTOs, VPs of Engineering, chief architects, and heads of data/AI at Snowflake's most strategic accounts: lead architectural steering, technical reviews, and executive strategy alignment to help shape their AI roadmaps.
• Drive Architecture & Technical Strategy Across High-Stakes Deployments: Own end-to-end technical execution and outcomes across Snowflake's most complex, high-visibility AI engagements.
• Stay hands-on: Write production code and working prototypes on the most critical parts of customer programs, and review designs and code to set the bar for how the team builds.
• Own the AI quality bar: Lead how the team measures and improves AI quality, turning ambiguous customer goals into clear, testable evaluation standards.
• Provide Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Mentor Senior and Staff engineers, raise engineering standards across the organization, and partner with cross-functional leads to drive complex technical initiatives.
• Travel to Customer Sites: Spend at least 25% of your time onsite working with customers.
OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL HAVE:
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including at least 3 years building and shipping production AI/ML or agentic systems at enterprise scale.
• Proven track record as a trusted technical advisor to CTOs and executive engineering leaders at large enterprises.
• Demonstrated success converting client/field delivery patterns into reusable platforms, tools, frameworks, or open-source libraries.
• Deep expertise in production AI architectures-including RAG pipelines, multi-step agentic systems, evaluation frameworks, and guardrails.
• Hands-on builder who writes and reviews production code and stays close to implementation.
• Strong systems mindset with exceptional technical communication skills across both deeply technical and executive audiences.
BONUS POINTS FOR THE FOLLOWING:
• Experience shipping features into a commercial data or AI platform, based on customer requirements.
• Active contributions to open-source AI frameworks, technical publications, or industry speaking engagements.
• Familiarity with Cortex AI, Snowpark, or modern enterprise data infrastructure platforms.
WHY JOIN FRONTIER ENGINEERING AT SNOWFLAKE?
Frontier Engineering is where Snowflake's AI platform meets reality. You're not building demos, you're shipping AI applications that run in some of the world's most complex enterprise environments. You will work on hard problems with real stakes, alongside engineers who are deeply technical and customer-obsessed.
How do you want to make your impact?
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?
