Interesting Data Gigs # 50: Senior Cloud Support Engineer at Snowflake

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Marcos Ortiz
July 15, 2023

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Hello, Data Geek. This issue is very special because it’s number 50.

In my wildest dreams, I saw this incredible amazing community we have created here. My goal is the same as when I started: I just want to help you to get that fantastic Data role you have dreamed of. That’s it.

We have come a long way, but we are just getting started.

As I said: this issue is special, so I wanted to write about a role in one of my favorite data-focused companies out there: Snowflake.

First things, first: What is Snowflake

Thanks to the new AI’s writing assistant from beehiive, I just generated this great definition of Snowflake:

Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing platform that revolutionizes the way organizations store, manage, and analyze their data. With its unique architecture, Snowflake enables businesses to effortlessly scale their data storage and processing capabilities, providing them with the agility and flexibility needed to adapt to ever-changing data demands.

By decoupling storage and compute, Snowflake allows users to independently scale each component, resulting in optimal performance and cost efficiency. Its built-in security features ensure data privacy and compliance, while its intuitive user interface and powerful SQL capabilities make it accessible to both technical and non-technical users. Snowflake's ability to seamlessly integrate with popular data visualization and analytics tools further enhances its value, empowering organizations to derive valuable insights from their data and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

And of course, we need to share the numbers of the company because Snowflake is a public company with a market cap of $56.03 Billion at the time of this writing (July 13th, 2023)

  • Snowflake is going after a big market: $248 Billion to be exact

  • A Net Revenue Retention of 151% 

  • A 50% Year After Year Product Revenue Growth

  • An Annual Revenue of $2,066 Millions for a 69% YoY growth

  • Total Customers of 8,167, 373 spend more than $1M per year, and 590 of them are part of the Forbes Global 2000 Customers

Although Snowflake is not profitable yet, the margins are improving year by year, and with the strategic partnerships they have formed with Microsoft and NVIDIA; this will improve dramatically in the upcoming years.

Let’s focus on the role now.

Let’s dissect the job description

The role itself is called SENIOR CLOUD SUPPORT ENGINEER - DATA PLATFORM, and this one is located in San Mateo, California; but the same role is available in several regions of the world like Amsterdam, Dublin, Warsaw, Sao Paulo, and more.

Why Customer Support at Snowflake? Because from my perspective, this is one of the most critical roles in the company.

First: you will learn a ton about how the product actually works and performs in different scenarios, you will work with incredible but highly technical customers, and more important: you will work with a high-class engineering team and you could become one of the “Voices of the Customer” for the Product and Engineering team.

Let’s discuss 2 ideas on how to approach this job application (THE REAL MEAT)

Idea # 1: Use these resources to prepare yourself for the interview process

  • Follow the Snowflake team on Medium: There are so many great people sharing incredible content related to Snowflake on Medium, so you must follow their work there.

  • Read How Snowflake Builds Products in Lenny Rachitsky’s newsletter with Jeff Hollan (Director of Product - Snowpark, Ecosystem, and Developer Platform at Snowflake). A lot of great tips to understand how the company creates their products

Idea # 2: Make a little research using the #snowflakesummit and #snowflakesummit2023 hashtags on LinkedIn and Twitter, and ask some Snowflake customers which are their biggest pains today.

Collect all the feedback in a Google Doc document, and share it in the cover letter when you apply for the role, with some potential resolutions for these issues.

For example: if one of the biggest barriers in order to use Snowflake more effectively are the costs; perhaps using a tool like Keebo could solve the problem.

BTW, this video is a great start

Keebo: the data teamʼs best friend

Give data teams their time back, boost performance, and save money with fully automated data warehouse and analytics optimizations.

vimeo.com/796862670

If you are interested to know more about Keebo, chat with Blake Hammond.

Wrapping up

I could stay all day giving you reasons why you should join Snowflake, but I won’t do that. Simply: Take action and apply for the job there.

Good luck with your application.

We’re looking for a senior analyst with experience in data science, statistics, and ML/ generative AI to join the Caribou Digital team. The right candidate will be responsible for analyzing data across the business for both internal and external clients, including our proprietary mobile data analytics platform, first-party surveys, public data sets (e.g. Findex), commercial sales activity data, and more. Generalists with experience doing end-to-end ETL, building dashboards and visualizations, and even helping to configure our AWS services, are especially valued.

Caribou Digital

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Job Search Resources of the Week

✅ Love this conversation between Ryan Roslansky (CEO of LinkedIn) and Athletic Greens President and COO Kat Cole.

✅ Katelyn Bourgoin (one of my favorite creators out there and the writer behind the Why We Buy newsletter) is thinking seriously about the future of her venture.

So, perhaps she will hire new people for her team. Follow her on Twitter and subscribe to her newsletter

✅ Can Social Media get you hired? According to Bonnie Dilber, you can optimize your profiles for that, especially on LinkedIn

✅ Mercury is looking for a VP of Product Engineering

✅ Negotiating a job or promotion offer? This list of resources shared by Varun Negandhi is incredible

Other newsletters you should check out

Landed!Giving you the tips, tools, and network to take the turbulence out of your job search!
Path to PMA weekly advice column about driving better projects, gaining confidence, and accelerating your career.

Interesting reads of the week

Final words

My final message? Just take action, my friend.

Marcos out

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