Principal Software Engineer

About the role

Snap Inc. is a technology company that believes the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. The company operates Snapchat, a visual messaging app, and Specs Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary dedicated to making computing more human, among others.

Responsibilities

• 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
• Provide technical direction that influences the entire company
• Utilize AI tools and high velocity engineering workflows to design and ship scalable services while upholding rigorous standards for code correctness, security, and production ready quality code

Requirements

• Excellent programming and software design skills, including debugging, performance analysis, and test design
• Proven track record of operating highly-available systems at scale
• Ability to proactively learn new concepts and technology and apply them at work
• Strong collaboration and mentorship skills
• 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
• Adaptability in learning and applying evolving AI systems and tools to remain at the forefront of engineering trends and modern development practices

Qualifications

• Bachelors in technical field such as computer science, mathematics, statistics or equivalent years of experience
• 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
• 2+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization
• Experience in technical leadership/ownership and setting technical direction for engineering projects
• Experience architecting, designing, and developing distributed systems

Preferred Qualifications

• 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

Benefits

At Snap Inc., we offer a variety of benefits to support your well-being and happiness, including:

• Paid parental leave
• Comprehensive medical coverage
• Emotional and mental health support programs
• Compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!

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