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Staff Software Engineer, Cortex AI Search Infrastructure

snowflakeUS-CA-Menlo ParkEngineering
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Salary
$236K – $339,250
Job type
Full-time
Work mode
Remote
Experience
Senior · 9+ yrs
Posted
17 Sept 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

In Menlo Park, California, Snowflake offers a full-time Staff Software Engineer position focused on search infrastructure for enterprise artificial intelligence products. This role suits an experienced distributed systems engineer looking to build high-performance retrieval engines and agentic runtimes.

Role Overview

Snowflake is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join the Cortex team in Menlo Park, California. The position centers on developing the search infrastructure that supports flagship offerings like CoWork, Cortex Code, and Cortex Agents. Selected candidates will work on building scalable retrieval engines utilizing semantic indexing, hybrid search, and vector search to handle billions of data rows.

Key Responsibilities

Design and scale orchestration engines for complex agentic workflows with low latency and reliable state management.
Build high-performance systems for Retrieval-Augmented Generation, incorporating vector database integration, search indexing, query processing, result ranking, semantic caching, and metadata extraction.
Create automated infrastructure to execute massive-scale golden set simulations, error analysis pipelines, and optimization experiments.
Partner with modeling teams to transform raw large language model capabilities into secure, multi-tenant microservices featuring observability and guardrails.
Direct infrastructure strategy regarding model routing, token optimization, and prompt caching to maximize system efficiency.

Requirements

Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
Bring 9 or more years of professional experience in constructing distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, or backend infrastructure for artificial intelligence and machine learning products.
Demonstrate proficiency in Go or Java for systems development and Python for artificial intelligence orchestration.
Possess a strong grasp of cloud-native architecture, distributed state management, and database internals.
Exhibit familiarity with vector indices, agent platforms, and scalable data pipeline architecture.

Nice to Have

Background in SQL engine internals and query optimization.
Experience designing multi-tenant architectures for sensitive enterprise data at scale.
History of developing search infrastructure for large-scale applications.
Direct exposure to the specific subsystems mentioned in the role description.

Skills and Tools

Go
Java
Python
Kubernetes
FoundationDB
Vector databases
Search indexing
Distributed systems

Salary and Benefits

The salary range for this position is $236,000 to $339,250. Detailed benefits and additional compensation information are available on the official company careers page.

About the Company

Snowflake builds data and artificial intelligence cloud solutions. The organization prioritizes strict data security and confidentiality standards across all operations and employee responsibilities.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should review the complete posting and apply on the official company careers page.

Skills and tech stack

GoJavaPythonKubernetesFoundationDBLLMRAGSQLDistributed Systems

Questions candidates ask

What is the location of the Staff Software Engineer role?

The position is located in Menlo Park, California, within the United States.

What programming languages are required for this position?

Candidates must have proficiency in Go or Java for systems work, and Python for artificial intelligence orchestration.

How many years of experience are needed?

Applicants must have 9 or more years of experience building distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, or backend infrastructure for artificial intelligence and machine learning products.

What educational background is required?

A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field is required.

What is the salary range for this job?

The salary ranges from $236,000 to $339,250.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official snowflake careers page.

Apply on company site