Staff Software Engineer, Level 6

Location: Bellevue, India | Santa Monica, United States | Seattle, India

Department: Engineering

Employment Type: Full time

About Snap Inc

Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

About the Role

Snap Inc is a camera company that believes the camera and AR present the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We're powering human progress through Snapchat's visual messaging, Lens Studio's augmented reality platform, and Spectacles AR glasses—reaching hundreds of millions of Snapchatters daily with fun, technically sophisticated products. Our Engineering teams move fast with precision, always prioritizing privacy, and we're deeply committed to a creative culture where diverse voices innovate at the intersection of camera tech and real-time experiences. Join our Core Infrastructure team as a Staff Software Engineer, Level 6, to build the high-performance caching backbone that enables seamless AR Lenses, instant Snaps, and global Spectacles interactions. In this role, you'll design and optimize massive-scale caching systems like Redis/KeyDB/Valkey, including custom proxies and client libraries for ultra-low latency at 125M+ QPS. You'll tackle challenges like request routing, connection coalescing, failover, replication, and cluster management, while fine-tuning CPU, memory, persistence, and eviction for Snap's demanding workloads. Enhance observability with cutting-edge metrics and tracing to debug issues in real-time, drive benchmarking and capacity planning, and collaborate across infra, storage, and app teams to embed caching into critical paths for camera-driven features. As a technical leader, you'll evaluate tradeoffs, mentor engineers, lead complex initiatives, and contribute to code quality through reviews and deep dives— all while embodying Snap's values of speed, precision, and creativity. With 9+ years of experience in distributed systems and languages like Java, Go, C++, or Python, you'll thrive in our 'Default Together' environment (4+ days/week in office) fostering dynamic collaboration. Snap is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity, offering competitive pay (Zone A: $229K-$343K base + RSUs), comprehensive benefits, and a chance to shape the future of AR innovation.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize large-scale caching systems (Redis/KeyDB/Valkey, custom proxy layers, or client libraries) to power Snapchat's real-time AR experiences
• Develop and maintain high-performance caching proxies or client-side libraries for request routing, connection coalescing, and slot-aware load balancing
• Implement robust failover, replication, and cluster topology management for low-latency workloads serving hundreds of millions of Snapchatters
• Optimize CPU performance, memory usage, persistence, and eviction strategies to handle 125M+ QPS at Snap's massive scale
• Enhance observability with advanced metrics, tracing, and debugging tools for cache infrastructure supporting camera and AR innovations
• Drive benchmarking, tuning, and capacity planning to ensure seamless performance for Snapchat's visual messaging and Lens Studio AR platform
• Evaluate technical tradeoffs of major decisions and serve as a strong technical mentor to engineering teams
• Collaborate with infrastructure, storage, and application teams to integrate caching into critical paths for Spectacles AR glasses and Snapchat features
• Contribute to code quality through reviews, documentation, and deep dives into caching internals
• Proactively learn new concepts and apply them to advance Snap's creative culture and fast-paced innovation

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field such as computer science or equivalent practical experience
• 9+ years of industry software engineering experience
• Hands-on experience with large-scale caching systems like Redis, KeyDB, or Valkey
• Experience building high availability and mission-critical distributed systems
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems and Cloud Computing
• Proficiency in Java, Go, C++, and/or Python
• Demonstrated ability to lead and execute large, complex technical initiatives

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Service Oriented architectures and Service Mesh
• Experience promoting operational excellence, leading incident management, and post-mortems
• Experience building and maintaining mission-critical, highly-available global distributed systems

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Large-scale caching systems (Redis/KeyDB/Valkey)
• High-performance proxy and client library development
• Distributed systems design and optimization
• Failover, replication, and cluster management
• CPU/memory optimization and eviction strategies
• Observability tools (metrics, tracing, debugging)
• Benchmarking and capacity planning at 125M+ QPS
• Java programming
• Go programming
• C++ programming
• Python programming
• Cloud Computing expertise
• Technical leadership and mentoring
• Code review and documentation best practices
• Cross-team collaboration
• Proactive learning and innovation
• Problem-solving in high-availability environments

Our Benefits

• Paid parental leave
• Comprehensive medical coverage
• Emotional and mental health support programs
• Compensation packages with equity in the form of RSUs to share in Snap’s long-term success
• Support for disabilities or special needs with accommodations
• “Default Together” policy fostering dynamic collaboration in office 4+ days per week
• Focus on well-being, work-life balance, and community building
• Opportunities to contribute to innovative products reaching hundreds of millions globally

Compensation

$229,000-$343,000 annually

This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs.

"Default Together" Policy: At Snap Inc, we practice a "default together" approach and expect team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.

Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.