Senior Snowflake Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Location:

• Hybrid at one of these locations: Frisco, TX, Alpharetta, GA, Coral Springs, FL, or Berkeley Heights, NJ, open to Remote for Rock Star

Role Summary:

We re looking for a Senior Snowflake Subject Matter Expert (SME) to drive technical excellence across our Snowflake data platform architecture, data warehousing, performance/cost optimization, governance, and AI enablement (including Snowflake Cortex). This is a hands-on role that partners closely with the Chief Architect and engineering teams to deliver scalable, secure, and cost-efficient solutions that support analytics, reporting, and AI use cases.

This person is expected to be deeply technical, capable of setting standards, and willing to get into the weeds when needed to unblock teams and improve platform outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

Snowflake Architecture & Standards

• Provide Snowflake solution architecture for enterprise data warehousing and analytics workloads.
• Define and maintain Snowflake reference patterns for:
• Database/schema/object design
• Warehouse strategy (sizing, scaling, workload isolation)
• Data sharing patterns (internal/external where applicable)
• Streams, Tasks, and automation approaches
• Review designs and implementations to ensure alignment with architecture standards and best practices.

Data Warehousing & Data Modeling

• Lead and support implementation of modern warehousing patterns (layered/medallion, domain modeling, semantic/certified views).
• Partner with engineering and analytics teams on:
• Dimensional and analytical modeling
• Curated datasets that support BI and downstream consumption
• Data quality and reliability patterns (checks, SLAs, lineage-friendly design)

Performance & Cost Optimization

• Tune and optimize Snowflake usage across teams:
• Query performance (pruning, clustering strategy, optimization patterns)
• Warehouse utilization (right-sizing, multi-cluster, workload separation)
• Cost controls (credit usage visibility, guardrails, sustainable defaults)
• Establish repeatable practices for monitoring and continuous optimization.

Security, Governance, and Compliance Enablement

• Implement and reinforce Snowflake security patterns:
• RBAC design and role hierarchy
• Secure views
• Masking and row-level controls where required
• Ensure Snowflake implementations support auditability and policy-driven access.

AI Enablement (Snowflake Cortex)

• Lead technical enablement and implementation patterns for Snowflake Cortex.
• Partner with architecture, data, and business stakeholders to:
• Identify viable Cortex use cases
• Design governed, scalable AI patterns close to the data
• Help teams operationalize AI features safely (controls, permissions, audit considerations)

Collaboration & Enablement

• Mentor engineers and analysts working in Snowflake; raise overall platform maturity.
• Create lightweight documentation: patterns, examples, golden paths, do/don t lists.
• Act as the Snowflake escalation point for tough problems (performance, design tradeoffs, governance).

Required Qualifications

• Advanced Snowflake expertise in enterprise environments (hands-on, not just conceptual).
• Strong experience with:
• Snowflake SQL, query optimization
• Warehouses, resource management, and workload isolation
• Streams/Tasks and automation patterns
• Data warehousing architecture and data modeling
• Proven ability to implement secure, governed data access (RBAC, secure views, masking/row policies as needed).
• Ability to translate business needs into practical, scalable technical designs.
• Strong communication skills able to influence across engineering + stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Snowflake Cortex and AI/LLM-enabled data use cases.
• Familiarity with BI ecosystems (e.g., Power BI) and semantic layer practices.
• Experience building medallion-style architectures and certified data products/views.
• Snowflake certifications (SnowPro Core / Advanced) are a plus.
• Experience operating in regulated/compliance-conscious environments.