Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Senior Software Engineer role sits close to the infrastructure layer that underpins a large-scale SaaS platform: the operating system stack and container runtime used across major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP). In the SaaS ecosystem, these are the components that determine how reliably and efficiently multi-tenant services run, and they increasingly differentiate platforms that operate at significant fleet size.
From a career standpoint, the work maps to durable SaaS problems: standardising images and runtimes, building lifecycle tooling from build through production, and balancing performance, security, and compliance constraints across distributed systems. Experience here translates well to platform engineering, SRE-adjacent infrastructure, and cloud runtime roles across data, developer tooling, and enterprise SaaS companies—especially where internal platforms must support many teams and services.
This is best suited to engineers who enjoy system-level debugging across multi-component environments and are motivated by long-horizon engineering rather than feature delivery. It will appeal to professionals who like collaborating across functions and, at times, with cloud providers, and who want to deepen expertise in Linux internals, containers, and large-scale cloud operations within a product-led SaaS context.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
Snowflake is about empowering enterprises to achieve their full potential — and people too. With a culture that’s all in on impact, innovation, and collaboration, Snowflake is the sweet spot for building big, moving fast, and taking technology — and careers — to the next level.
Senior Software Engineer - Operating Systems and Container Runtime
We’re hiring talented Senior Software Engineers to join a unique Operating Systems team at Snowflake and help us solve complex and challenging software engineering problems at massive scale.
As the OS Engineering team, we’re responsible for designing, building, managing, and optimizing the operating system layer for Snowflake's fleet across all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure and GCP) as well as build the next generation container runtime.
As a member of Snowflake’s OS Engineering team, you will have the opportunity to have a real business and technical impact on some of the biggest businesses around the world.
AS A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, YOU WILL:
Have an amazing team to work with and an actual impact on the company’s core business.
Build solutions for some of the cutting-edge software and hardware cloud features, often in cooperation with cloud providers directly.
Work on large and complex projects across build infrastructure, platforms, tools and automation in the cloud.
Ensure that rigid performance, security and compliance requirements are met across all internal services deployed at major cloud providers like AWS, Azure and GCP.
Work on current and future OS and container images that are/will be used by VMs and a container platform across hundreds of thousands of machines.
Design, implement, test, and deploy the tools necessary to provide a full lifecycle for current and future OS images, containers — from build, through deployment to production usage.
OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL HAVE:
6+ years of relevant work experience in software development.
Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field involving software engineering.
Experience in developing, debugging, and shipping software products on large code bases that span multiple platforms and tools.
Experience in debugging complex, system-level, multi-component issues.
A track record for high-quality and impactful delivery, demonstrating strong design skills and a passion for code quality.
Skilled in interacting and working with people in a proactive manner to mitigate key project technical risks and ensure quality.
Excellent team player who enjoys a collaborative team environment and has a passion for enabling others to adopt new technologies.
BONUS POINTS FOR THE FOLLOWING:
Experience with cloud environments - AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Experience with Containers, Docker, and Kubernetes.
Experience in Linux internals or Kernel development.
Experience with complex build systems and tools like Bazel.
Deep understanding of OS internals and core libraries, including virtual memory, threads, context switches, kernels, interrupts, system calls, interprocess communication, coordination, and the interaction between software and hardware.
Deep understanding of networking concepts and services based on systems networking.
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?
For jobs located in the United States, please visit the job posting on the Snowflake Careers Site for salary and benefits information: careers.snowflake.com
