Principal Software Engineer II, Horizon Catalog

Principal Software Engineer II

At 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.

The Snowflake Horizon Catalog is the Universal AI Catalog, providing built-in context and governance for AI across all enterprise data. It is compatible with any engine, any data format, and runs anywhere. Horizon Catalog unifies discovery, security, compliance, and collaboration, serving as the single source of truth for the entire data estate.

This role is central to Snowflake's culture of impact, innovation, and collaboration. We are looking for a visionary engineering leader to drive company-wide technical strategy and execute critical, multi-year initiatives with cross-organizational impact.

As a Principal Software Engineer II, You Will:

• Set technical vision: Lead strategic planning for the Horizon Catalog, translating complex business goals into technical architecture, and developing high-impact engineering roadmaps.
• Drive product influence: Actively influence and co-develop the product roadmap in partnership with the PM team
• High velocity execution: Directly lead execution of high complexity initiatives, and guide the execution of other initiatives in the team
• Technical mentorship: Mentor and grow senior engineers

Our Ideal Principal Software Engineer II Will Have:

Minimum Qualifications

• 15+ years experience designing and building large-scale distributed services.
• Metadata mastery: Deep expertise in metadata management and designing architectures to unify data from heterogeneous sources for governance.
• Governance expertise: Proven ability to architect fine-grained access control and audit systems.
• Strategic leadership: Track record of translating high-level business strategy into actionable engineering roadmaps and influencing technical direction across multiple teams.
• Fluency in Java or another similar procedural object-oriented language.
• BS, Masters or PhD in Computer Science.

Preferred Qualifications (Strategic Differentiation)

• AI/Semantic Architecture: Experience leveraging semantic metadata to power AI experiences, such as RAG for discovery.
• Competitive Fluency: Ability to articulate architectural differentiation against key competitors.
• Modern Access Control: Solid understanding of RBAC and ABAC principles applied to scalable permissioning layers.
• MCP/Agent Ecosystems: Experience exposing catalog/search tools via Multi-Cloud Platforms for third-party agents, including safety and policy integration.

Why Join the Engineering Team at Snowflake?

Build an industry-leading Cloud Data and AI Platform, solving challenging technical problems related to security, parallelism, distributed systems, and large-scale system maintenance. Join a world-class team and innovate with rigor.

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 $304,000 - $437,000.
• 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.