Staff Software Engineer, ML Feature Store
Snap Inc. · Bellevue, WA
$229,000–$343,000from the description
Jul 17, 2026
Bellevue, WA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A staff-level technical lead role on a Feature Store team, responsible for designing and operating the systems and data pipelines that store, retrieve, and serve machine learning features for both large-scale batch and low-latency online inference. The position involves setting technical direction, owning system reliability and operational health, and mentoring engineers. It suits a senior distributed-systems engineer with a background in ML infrastructure or real-time data pipelines.
Staff level · 9+ years · Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA · Bachelor's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
Why we read it this way (7)
The role is explicitly titled 'Staff Software Engineer' and the JD describes genuine Staff-level scope: setting technical direction across teams, owning cross-functional initiatives over multiple quarters, and influencing Director-level stakeholders — not merely a long experience requirement.
Compensation figures shown are for Zone A (CA, WA, NYC) at $229,000–$343,000/year; Zone B is $218,000–$326,000 and Zone C is $195,000–$292,000. The Zone A range is reported here as it represents the primary/highest-visibility pay band. The role also carries RSU equity.
The posting requires a Bachelor's degree in a technical field 'or equivalent practical experience.' Because equivalent experience is explicitly accepted, the degree requirement is set to None per extraction rules — however, the JD does name a degree as the baseline, so hiring managers should be aware a degree is the stated preference.
Snap's 'default together' policy requires 4+ days per week in-office; the role is not remote. The primary office location is inferred as Snap's headquarters in Santa Monica, CA (Los Angeles CBSA), though the pay-zone structure suggests the role may also be filled in Seattle or New York.
C++ is listed under Preferred Qualifications with a specific callout for 'modern C++ (C++11/14/17)'; Go, Java, and Python are also listed as preferred backend language alternatives. None of these are in the required section.
The alt SOC 15-1243 (Database Architects) is noted because a significant portion of the role involves designing feature storage solutions, versioned feature registries, and data pipeline architecture — but the primary framing is large-scale distributed systems and backend engineering, making 15-1252 the stronger fit.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): real-time data pipelines, performance optimization.
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