Principal Engineer

Principal Engineer - Data ProtectionAt Snowflake, we are powering the era of the agentic enterprise. To usher in this new era, we seek AI-native thinkers across every function who are energized by the opportunity to reinvent how they work. You don't just use tools; you possess an innate curiosity, treating AI as a high-trust collaborator that is core to how you solve problems and accelerate your impact. We look for low-ego individuals who thrive in dynamic and fast-moving environments and move with an experimental mindset — who rapidly test emerging capabilities to discover simpler, more powerful ways to deliver results. At Snowflake, your role isn't just to execute a function, but to help redefine the future of how work gets done.Role SummaryAs a Principal Engineer in the Data Protection group, you will be the technical lead for the Data Exfiltration Protection (DXP) and Data Movement Policy (DMP) initiatives. You will bridge the gap between high-level security policy and low-level system enforcement, ensuring that our perimeter controls are robust, scalable, and deeply integrated with context-aware access policy frameworks. You will be responsible for the architectural evolution of our egress control systems, moving from simple IP-based rules to sophisticated, content-aware, and identity-driven data movement governance.As a Principal Software Engineer - Identity, Data Security and Trust at Snowflake You Will:Architectural Leadership: Lead the design and implementation of the Data Movement Policy (DMP) framework, ensuring it can handle complex multi-cloud and hybrid environments.DXP Strategy: Define the roadmap for Data Exfiltration Protection, evolve and enhance ingress and egress controls, and intelligent anomaly detection for data egress.Policy Unification: Drive the technical effort to unify Context-Aware Access policies with egress perimeter controls, creating a single, cohesive policy engine for all data movement.Design Specification: Author and review complex design documents for DMP and Perimeter Policy, ensuring high reliability, low latency, and auditability.Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with Product Management to refine the DXP product requirements and translate business goals into actionable engineering milestones.Mentorship: Guide senior and staff engineers across multiple teams, fostering a culture of security-first engineering and rigorous design standards.Our Ideal Principal Software Engineer - Identity Data Security + Trust Will Have:Experience: 12+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in a principal or architect role focusing on infrastructure or security.Security Expertise: Deep understanding of network security protocols (TLS/SSL, DNS), Zero Trust architectures, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies.System Design: Proven track record of designing and deploying high-scale distributed systems (Java, Go, or C++).Cloud Infrastructure: Strong experience with cloud-native security controls in AWS, GCP, or Azure (e.g., VPC Service Controls, Private Link).AI Forward: Effective deployment of AI models and tooling to improve team productivity and execution.Communication: Excellent ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both executive leadership and individual contributors.Every Snowflake employee is expected to follow the company's confidentiality and security standards for handling sensitive data. Snowflake employees must abide by the company's data security plan as an essential part of their duties. It is every employee's duty to keep customer information secure and confidential.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?The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:The estimated base salary range for this role is $264,000 - $379,500.Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Snowflake's bonus and equity plan.The successful candidate's starting salary will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as skills, experience, and geographic location. This role is also eligible for a competitive benefits package that includes: medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance; 401(k) retirement plan; flexible spending & health savings account; at least 12 paid holidays; paid time off; parental leave; employee assistance program; and other company benefits.