Principal Frontend AI Engineer - Cortex Code

Snowflake is building AI commercialization on top of its own platform, and this role helps power one of the most business-critical systems in the company. As a Principal Frontend AI Engineer working on Cortex Code, you will contribute to federated, distributed billing systems and help shape how AI products are metered, priced, and invoiced using Snowflake’s platforms and Cortex AI tooling.

What you’ll build and improve

• Own medium-sized projects end-to-end, from design through launch and operation, while also contributing as a key engineer on larger, multi-team initiatives.
• Build federated, distributed billing systems that meter, rate, and invoice usage across every Snowflake service, all using Snowflake’s product capabilities.
• Shape billing strategy for AI products in collaboration with Cortex AI, Intelligence, and Apps, including token-based inference, agent workflows, and AI-native subscriptions.

How you’ll work

• Use AI as a first-class collaborator in development, code review, debugging, and on-call triage through Cortex Code CLI and Snowflake Intelligence.
• Take responsibility for reliability and correctness by participating in on-call, debugging across unfamiliar areas, and driving systemic fixes to monitoring, alerts, and quality.
• Serve as the go-to expert for one or more billing components, such as metering, rating, invoicing, contracts, payments, threshold billing, fraud, or reporting, and mentor other engineers.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Finance, GTM Systems, Growth, Trust, and Legal to translate business intent into reliable, auditable systems.

What you bring

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience building and supporting large-scale, production distributed systems.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science (or related technical field) or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, including consistency, fault tolerance, idempotency, exactly-once processing, queueing, and stream/batch data pipelines.
• Strong fundamentals in databases and data modeling, including SQL fluency, schema design, performance tuning, and operational experience with large-scale data systems.
• Proficiency in one or more of Java, Scala, Python, or Go, plus engineering practices that enable scalable operations such as testing, observability, CI/CD, and incremental rollout.
• Proven ability to independently design, specify, schedule, and deliver medium-sized projects with quality, while contributing to larger multi-team efforts.
• Demonstrated track record owning reliability, including on-call participation, debugging production issues across unfamiliar areas, and delivering systemic fixes.
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative working style, comfortable partnering with non-engineering stakeholders in Finance, Product, GTM, and Legal.
• Curiosity about AI as a builder tool, hands-on experience with AI-driven development workflows, and interest in shaping commercial models that bring AI products to market.

Bonus points if you have

• Experience with billing, payments, metering, revenue, or financial systems in a SaaS or cloud environment.
• Experience with fraud detection, abuse mitigation, or trust/safety systems in a usage-based product.
• Experience designing or evolving pricing models for AI/ML products (inference, fine-tuning, agentic workloads).
• Experience building on Snowflake or comparable cloud data platforms (Snowpark, Streams/Tasks, Iceberg, Streamlit, Cortex).
• Contributions to internal AI developer-productivity tooling, agentic skills, or Cortex Code workflows.

Tools you’ll use

Cortex Code CLI, Snowflake Intelligence, Cortex AI, SQL, Java, Scala, Python, Go

Compensation and location

Location: Menlo Park, CA (onsite)

Estimated base salary range (United States): $200,000 - $287,500 per year

This role is eligible to participate in Snowflake’s bonus and equity plan.

Benefits

• Bonus and equity plan eligibility
• 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
• Other company benefits