Principal Software Engineer - Snowflake Intelligence

About the Role\n\nThe Cortex Apps team is defining the future of AI for enterprise data through products like Snowflake Intelligence.\n\nAs a Principal AI Engineer, you will define the technical vision and tackle complex problems in agentic reasoning, NL-to-SQL, and enterprise-scale RAG for reliable, scalable AI products.\n\n## What you will do in this role:\n\n- Technical Strategy & Architecture: Define the long-term technical vision for Snowflake Intelligence. Lead architectural design of multi-agent systems, complex tool-use frameworks, and self-correcting NL-to-SQL engines.\n- Drive Industry-Leading Reliability: Build automated "hill-climbing" infrastructure. Establish methodology for measuring and guaranteeing LLM performance across diverse customer schemas.\n- Cross-Functional Influence: Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to align AI capabilities with business goals. Bridge Research and Production.\n- Ecosystem Thinking: Design extensible "context engineering" patterns, including advanced function calling and semantic layer integration.\n- Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Mentor Staff and Senior engineers, lead cross-functional strike teams, foster technical excellence.\n\n## Requirements:\n\n- Experience: 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 3+ years specifically leading the deployment of LLM-based applications at massive scale.\n- Education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, AI, or a related field.\n- Expertise: Deep understanding of LLM orchestration, prompt optimization, semantic modeling, robust guardrails for non-deterministic systems.\n- Systems Thinking: Proven track record designing complex systems integrating AI with traditional data stacks (SQL, Retrieval Systems, Semantic Layers).\n- Communication: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical trade-offs to executives and ICs.\n- Proven Impact: Previously held Principal or equivalent high-level IC role, or led technical launch of major AI product used by millions.