Staff Software Engineer — Backend

We’re on a mission to democratize AI by building the definitive AI data development platform. The AI landscape has gone through incredible change between 2016, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler!

You will be part of the backend team that is building a scalable and reliable system that empowers users to solve their most pressing needs in a data-centric AI world. The team has a variety of technical backgrounds, from machine learning PhDs to full-stack engineers who are collaborating to help push the boundaries of frontier model development and performance. You will be joining a fast-paced environment as a pragmatic, high-impact, product-focused engineer with the opportunity to shape the direction of the product, company, and the future of AI!

Main Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, design, development, and operations of large-scale systems designed for AI/ML tasks including, data management systems, data engineering workflow systems, distributed compute systems, and end user experiences
• Strike a balance between building for the future and immediate impact. You are obsessed with quality and correctness, and have a strong sense of ownership from design through production.
• Be a proactive and creative problem solver, while charting a roadmap with changing sets of requirements.
• Prototype, optimize, and maintain scalable back-end services that will power new ML and foundation model powered development workflows
• Keep CI/CD pipelines healthy and support customers in production via engaged on-call support
• Be an engaged team player in a customer-focused cross-functional environment where you will feel excited to take on whatever is most impactful for the company and product. Excitement for mentorship is a plus!

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field
• 5 years experience in delivering distributed systems and services in a production setting for cloud-native applications
• Experience with distributed compute frameworks and data processing pipelines
• Ability to design and build efficient scalable data storage, compute, and retrieval systems for AI/ML tasks
• Strong communication and coding skills with emphasis on designing for scale and robustness
• Strong development and debugging skills

Preferred Qualifications

• 8 years of professional software engineering experience
• Experience with architecting and developing production web-scale systems (monitoring, telemetry, performance, reliability, triage and debug)
• Experience with concurrent programming and optimization
• Experience working with ML systems and foundation models (e.g. large language models)
• Experience owning delivery of large multi-person multi-quarter projects
• Experience developing enterprise software products for machine learning and/or data science applications

Work a hybrid schedule with three days per week in our Redwood City HQ or SF office 

Salary Range $245,000—$265,000 USDBe Your Best At Snorkel   Snorkel AI is on a mission to make machine learning practical for everyone, and it starts with building a team that welcomes, represents and gives opportunity to all. We work at the frontier of AI and software engineering, and believe that underrepresented communities need to play a part in shaping the future of these fields. At Snorkel AI, we actively work to create an environment that values end-to-end ownership, diverse forms of impact, and opportunities for personal growth.   Snorkelers are supported by an amazing team and an amazing set of benefits. For Full-time employees, we offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans for Snorkelers and their families, plus a yearly wellness stipend. Our 401k program lets Snorkelers plan for their future and our parental leave program lets new parents take up to 20 weeks of paid time off. Learn more about these benefits and more — like our workstation setup allowance — on our Careers page.   Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.   We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.