Jobs / United States / Snowflake INC
Principal Forward Deployed Engineer I, Frontier Engineering
Snowflake INC · 🇺🇸 US-CA-Menlo Park
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 428 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 110 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Snowflake INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles148 certified filings for “Software Engineer” (Software Developers) in CA: $160k–$214k, median $188k. Most were filed at wage level II (41%) — 2 lottery entries, ≈31% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
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Sponsor Radar — Snowflake INC
The US Department of Labor certified 428 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 110 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Snowflake INC →
About the role
At Snowflake, we are powering the era of the agentic enterprise. To usher in this new era, we seek AI-native thinkers across every function who are energized by the opportunity to reinvent how they work. You don’t just use tools; you possess an innate curiosity, treating AI as a high-trust collaborator that is core to how you solve problems and accelerate your impact. We look for low-ego individuals who thrive in dynamic and fast-moving environments and move with an experimental mindset — who rapidly test emerging capabilities to discover simpler, more powerful ways to deliver results. At Snowflake, your role isn't just to execute a function, but to help redefine the future of how work gets done. Snowflake is about empowering enterprises to achieve their full potential, and people too. With a culture that's all in on impact, innovation, and collaboration, Snowflake is the sweet spot for building big, moving fast, and taking technology and careers to the next level. We are hiring a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer for our Frontier Engineering team. This team embeds directly with Snowflake's most strategic customers to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI systems . At the Principal level, you are the senior technical counterpart to CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and chief architects at our largest enterprise customers; you set the technical direction that the Frontier Engineering organization follows. AS A PRINCIPAL FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEER YOU WILL: - Be the trusted technical partner to customer engineering leadership: Build durable, peer-level relationships with CTOs, VPs of Engineering, chief architects, and heads of data/AI at Snowflake’s most strategic accounts: lead architectural steering, technical reviews, and executive strategy alignment to help shape their AI roadmaps. - Drive Architecture & Technical Strategy Across High-Stakes Deployments: Own end-to-end technical execution and outcomes across Snowflake’s most complex, high-visibility AI engagements. - Stay hands-on: Write production code and working prototypes on the most critical parts of customer programs, and review designs and code to set the bar for how the team builds. - Own the AI quality bar: Lead how the team measures and improves AI quality, turning ambiguous customer goals into clear, testable evaluation standards. - Provide Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Mentor Senior and Staff engineers, raise engineering standards across the organization, and partner with cross-functional leads to drive complex technical initiatives. - Travel to Customer Sites: Spend at least 25% of your time onsite working with customers. OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL HAVE: - 15+ years of software engineering experience, including at least 3 years building and shipping production AI/ML or agentic systems at enterprise scale. - Proven track record as a trusted technical advisor to CTOs and executive engineering leaders at large enterprises. - Demonstrated success converting client/field delivery patterns into reusable platforms, tools, frameworks, or open-source libraries. - Deep expertise in production AI architectures—including RAG pipelines, multi-step agentic systems, evaluation frameworks, and guardrails. - Hands-on builder who writes and reviews production code and stays close to implementation. - Strong systems mindset with exceptional technical communication skills across both deeply technical and executive audiences. BONUS POINTS FOR THE FOLLOWING: - Experience shipping features into a commercial data or AI platform, based on customer requirements. - Active contributions to open-source AI frameworks, technical publications, or industry speaking engagements. - Familiarity with Cortex AI, Snowpark, or modern enterprise data infrastructu