Principal Software Engineer

Join Snap Inc. as a Principal Software Engineer, where you will design, implement, and scale critical engineering components and services to support the company's most strategic initiatives. You will work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver innovative solutions. You will also advocate for best practices in availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management. This role offers a comprehensive benefits package, including generous time off, medical coverage, and a 401(k) plan.

• Design, implement, and scale critical engineering components and services to support Snap's most strategic initiatives.
• Work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver the solutions needed to build innovative products or services.
• Advocate for and apply best practices when it comes to availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management.
• Proven track record of operating highly-available systems at scale
• Excellent programming and software design skills, including debugging, performance analysis, and test design
• Proficiency in, or a strong aptitude for, leveraging AI tools to streamline development, paired with the critical judgment to audit generated output for architectural integrity, performance bottlenecks, and security risks
• Skilled at solving ambiguous problems
• Adaptability in learning and applying evolving AI systems and tools to remain at the forefront of engineering trends and modern development practices
• Ability to proactively learn new concepts and technology and apply them at work
• Strong collaboration and mentorship skills
• 10+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 9+ year of post-grad software development experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 6+ years of post-grad software development experience
• Experience in technical leadership/ownership and setting technical direction for engineering projects
• 2+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization
• Bachelors in technical field such as computer science, mathematics, statistics or equivalent years of experience
• Experience architecting, designing, and developing distributed systems
• Advanced degree in a technical field such as computer science
• Experience with cross platform development
• Ability to promote product excellence and collaboration, driving a portfolio of concurrent engineering projects, from short-term critical feature launches to long-term research initiatives
• Ability to create a compelling vision for the future, communicate clearly, and have a collaborative leadership approach