Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Snowflake sits in the cloud data platform layer of the SaaS ecosystem, where performance and cost efficiency are often the deciding factors in whether enterprise workloads succeed at scale. A Performance Architect role within a Field CTO office signals work at the intersection of product capability, real customer constraints, and executive-level decision making, rather than purely internal platform engineering.
For a SaaS career, this kind of remit builds durable leverage. It develops an operator’s understanding of how multi-tenant cloud economics, query patterns, and distributed systems behavior translate into measurable outcomes for customers. The role also creates repeated exposure to the feedback loop between field learnings and product roadmap influence, a common pathway into senior technical leadership in SaaS companies that sell complex platforms.
This position tends to suit professionals who prefer consultative problem solving over long feature backlogs, and who are comfortable switching between deep technical investigation and clear stakeholder communication. It is a strong match for experienced data platform practitioners who want their expertise to shape adoption patterns and technical strategy across many deployments, not just a single internal environment.
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.
Our Sales Engineering organisation is seeking a Performance Architect, focused on performance and cost optimisation to join our Field CTO Office who can provide leadership in working with both technical and business executives in the design and architecture of the Snowflake Cloud Data Platform as a critical component of their enterprise data architecture.
In this role you will work with sales teams, product management, and technology partners to leverage best practices and reference architectures highlighting Snowflake’s Cloud Data Platform as a core technology enabling platform for various workloads throughout an organisation.
As a Performance Architect, you must share our passion and vision in helping our customers and partners drive faster time to insight through Snowflake’s Cloud Data Platform, thrive in a dynamic environment, and have the flexibility and willingness to jump in and get things done. You are equally comfortable in both a business and technical context, interacting with executives and talking shop with technical audiences.
IN THIS ROLE YOU WILL GET TO:
Engage with our sales teams and our customers to understand performance challenges that might interfere with the successful onboarding of a workload onto the Snowflake Cloud Data Platform
Assess performance concerns presented by our sales teams and/or our customers, and if appropriate, conduct detailed investigations to identify underlying causes and propose prioritised solutions/recommendations to resolve performance issues
Apply your foundational understanding of data platforms and distributed systems to drive customers towards optimal outcomes for their workloads on our Cloud Data Platform
Provide expertise while presenting Snowflake technology and vision to executives and technical contributors at strategic prospects, customers, and partners
Collaborate closely with our Product team to effectively influence the Snowflake’s product roadmaps based on field team and customer feedback
Partner with Product Marketing teams to spread awareness and support pipeline building via customer roundtables, conferences, events, blogs, webinars, and white-papers
ON DAY ONE, WE WILL EXPECT YOU TO HAVE:
5+ years of experience in delivering high performance architectures, models, and solutions on distributed data platforms
Expert level knowledge of the SQL language (no exceptions)
Deep technical hands-on expertise in query tuning and optimisation
Comprehensive understanding of data pipelines and data engineering best practices
Working knowledge of scripting languages (such as Python) and the ability to write clean and efficient code that interacts with modern data platforms
Ability to assess gaps in technical understanding of others, and to clearly articulate complex concepts in simple terms to bridge/close gaps and drive better outcomes
Outstanding presentation skills to both technical and executive audiences, whether impromptu on a whiteboard or using presentations and demos
Bachelor’s Degree required, Masters Degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or related fields, or equivalent experience preferred
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
