Principal Engineer

Responsibilities

• Define and own the architectural vision for the SiS platform spanning the SPCS container runtime, the warehouse runtime, the embedding SDK, developer tooling, and the Snowsight integration layer
• Drive the platform's evolution toward its next-generation capabilities building on publicly shipping features like chromeless viewer URLs and IdP integration
• Serve as the primary technical representative for SiS in company-wide architecture forums, shaping Snowflake's broader app platform strategy
• Establish engineering standards for performance, reliability, and scale ensuring SiS can handle many concurrent users with fast startup times and high availability
• Lead the technical design and review process for high-stakes, cross-functional initiatives: working closely with infrastructure, Snowsight, Cortex/AI, security, and the open-source Streamlit project
• Be a strong hands-on contributor by authoring specs, implementing changes, reviewing PRs, and setting a high bar for code quality, API design, and system architecture
• Mentor and grow senior engineers on the team; identify and incubate the next generation of technical leaders
• Partner with Product and Design to drive the roadmap and translate customer needs (performance, scale, OSS parity) into robust engineering solutions
• Advocate for SiS developers and end users by balancing the developer experience of Python engineers with the scalability needs of enterprise customers embedding Streamlit

Requirements

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with a demonstrated track record of architecting and shipping production-grade developer platforms or application runtimes
• Strong expertise in Python application runtimes, server-side frameworks, and distributed execution environments with a deep understanding of performance, reliability, and lifecycle management at scale
• Strong understanding of container-based execution environments (Docker, Kubernetes, SPCS or similar) and the performance/reliability tradeoffs they introduce
• Hands-on experience designing and evolving developer-facing SDKs, embedding APIs, or component libraries including thoughtful API versioning and backward compatibility
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical programs that span multiple teams and organizational boundaries driving clarity, alignment, and accountability without direct authority
• Experience with enterprise SaaS reliability requirements: multi-tenancy, scale, security review processes, and graceful migrations

Nice-to-Haves

• Familiarity with the open-source Streamlit framework or similar Python-based app frameworks
• Experience working with IdP integrations, OAuth flows, or authentication systems for embedded/public-facing web applications
• Familiarity with the web platform (TypeScript/JavaScript, browser APIs, WebSockets, service workers, iframe/cross-origin security models) particularly as it relates to how Python-backed apps are served and embedded in the browser