# Senior Software Engineer - APM & AI Observability

**Company:** [Snowflake](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/snowflake)
**Location:** Menlo Park, CA
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $200k – $288k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Java, Python, Go, Distributed Systems, Data Pipelines, Streaming Systems, Apache Iceberg, OpenTelemetry, Distributed Tracing, Graph Traversal, Microservices, APIs, LLMs, Kubernetes
**Posted:** 2026-05-01

> Builds and owns backend services, APIs, and streaming data pipelines for APM and AI observability products at scale. Requires 5+ years backend experience, strong distributed systems knowledge, and product mindset for cross-functional collaboration.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

- Own end-to-end product scopes across APM and AI observability product lines — from backend behavior and API design to data pipeline architecture and client-side SDK work
- Build and optimize streaming data pipelines that tackle graph traversal challenges at scale and LLM-as-judge online evaluation pipelines for real-time agentic telemetry
- Design and implement backend services and APIs that power microservice topology views, service error detection, latency analysis, and agentic workflow monitoring
- Collaborate cross-functionally with frontend, design, product, and support teams to deliver products that are intuitive for both human users and AI-native workflows
- Drive architecture and delivery for medium-to-large projects end-to-end, from technical design through production launch
- Champion product thinking on the engineering team — deeply understand customer use cases in both microservice and agentic application contexts before diving into technical solutions
- Mentor junior engineers and lead technical design decisions that raise the quality bar across the team

## Requirements

- BS in Computer Science or equivalent and solid computer science fundamentals (algorithms, systems, distributed computing)
- **5+ years** of backend development experience with strong programming and debugging skills
- Experience working with complex data pipelines and/or data warehouses at production scale
- Demonstrated product mindset — seek to understand user motivation and use cases before diving into implementation
- Experience owning and driving medium-sized projects successfully, including architecture and cross-team delivery
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
- Experience mentoring junior engineers or leading technical design discussions

## Nice-to-haves

- Experience building or working on APM or AI observability products (**OpenTelemetry** experience a strong plus)
- Hands-on experience building or operating agentic applications in production
- Exposure to customer-facing product development with strong product intuition
- Experience with streaming systems, distributed tracing, or graph-based data pipelines
- Prior experience in high-growth startups or fast-paced product environments

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**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/a2c26be4-aace-4798-852f-1e75de62d5bd