Staff Software Engineer, Platform Engineering

Location: Bellevue, India | Los Angeles, Canada | Palo Alto, Canada | San Francisco, Canada | 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 hiring a Staff Software Engineer for our Platform Engineering team, where you'll build and own foundational infrastructure across Compute, Networking, and Metrics for all Snap backends. Powering Snapchat's visual messaging, Lens Studio's AR creations, and Spectacles' immersive experiences, our systems support critical verticals like Messaging, Story Posting, Media Delivery, Memories, Content Feed, Ads, ML Platform, Maps, and Bitmoji at internet scale. In this hands-on role, you'll contribute to technical direction, design discussions, and solving complex challenges that enable hundreds of millions of Snapchatters to express themselves creatively every day. You'll design and develop high-availability systems in a fast-paced environment, set strategy with roadmaps and goals, and lead teams to deliver precise, privacy-first innovations. Collaborate with Product, Operations, Data Science, Engineering, and executives to drive AR advancements and camera technology that lets users live in the moment and have fun together. Evaluate tradeoffs, mentor engineers, and hire top talent to advance Snap's creative culture of moving fast with sophistication. Join a team deeply committed to human progress through technology that reaches global communities. With our 'Default Together' policy (4+ days in office weekly), diverse voices, and comprehensive benefits, you'll thrive in a supportive environment. Base salary ranges: Zone A (CA, WA, NYC) $229,000-$343,000; Zone B $218,000-$326,000; Zone C $195,000-$292,000, plus RSUs. Snap is an equal opportunity employer.

What You'll Do

• Design and develop scalable systems across Compute, Networking, and Metrics infrastructure for Snap's backends powering Snapchat, Lens Studio, and Spectacles
• Set technical strategy, build roadmaps, create measurable goals, and lead teams to deliver innovative platform services at internet scale
• Collaborate with Product, Operations, Data Science, Engineering teams, and executive stakeholders to enhance AR experiences and camera-driven features
• Evaluate technical tradeoffs of major decisions impacting critical verticals like Messaging, Story Posting, Media Delivery, and Ads
• Act as a strong technical mentor, guiding teams through complex challenges in a fast-paced, creative environment
• Hire, grow, and retain high-performing team members to support Snap's mission of empowering self-expression through AR and visual communication
• Own foundational infrastructure services including API Gateway, Service Mesh, Managed Kubernetes, Capacity Management, and Workload scheduling
• Drive hands-on contributions to platform systems that enable hundreds of millions of Snapchatters to live in the moment with fun, precise technology
• Participate in design discussions to integrate privacy-first principles and high-performance computing for real-time AR innovations
• Optimize infrastructure for multi-cloud environments to support Snap's global community and creative tools like Bitmoji and Maps

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a relevant technical field such as computer science or equivalent years of practical work experience
• 8+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 7+ years of post-grad software development experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 3+ years of post-grad software development experience
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud infrastructure technologies
• Background in building high availability and mission critical systems
• Experience leading an engineering team
• Experience leading and executing large, complex technical initiatives

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with driving large scale initiatives from ideation to completion
• Track record of delivery in rapidly changing, highly collaborative, multi-stakeholder environments
• Experience with large-scale and multi-cloud backend systems/services and networking services
• Experience with microservices architecture and Kubernetes containerized applications
• Experience with Graphite or Prometheus

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Distributed systems design and implementation
• Cloud infrastructure technologies (e.g., AWS, GCP, multi-cloud)
• High availability and mission-critical systems engineering
• Team leadership and mentoring
• Executing large-scale technical initiatives
• Microservices architecture
• Kubernetes and container orchestration
• API Gateway and Service Mesh
• Capacity management and workload scheduling
• Metrics and observability (Graphite, Prometheus)
• Networking services at scale
• Technical strategy and roadmap development
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Privacy-focused engineering
• Problem-solving in fast-paced environments
• Hiring and talent development

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 requiring accommodation
• "Default Together" policy fostering dynamic collaboration in office 4+ days per week
• Focus on well-being, diversity, and inclusion to build innovative products
• Equal opportunity employment regardless of protected classifications

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.