Senior software engineer - data platform emulators

Senior Software Engineer - Data Platform Emulators. Role focusing on building and maintaining high-fidelity data platform emulators (Snowflake, Redshift, Athena, Glue, and future services) to enable fast local testing and development. Located with LocalStack, a fast-growing Series A startup delivering a local cloud development platform and emulators.

Location: Remote with distributed team; headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland; main engineering office in Vienna, Austria. This role supports engineers and developers globally.

• Ensure Snowflake, Redshift, Athena, Glue, and future emulators are up to date with the latest syntax, behaviors, and APIs
• Identify and resolve bugs, edge cases, and inconsistencies across emulated services
• Maintain robust CI/CD pipelines, regression test coverage, and integration test suites for high-fidelity emulation
• Provide a fast and intuitive local development loop with meaningful error messages, good performance, and easy configuration
• Improve emulator usability in CLI tools, SDKs, and client integrations (e.g., JDBC, SnowSQL, third-party integrations)
• Design and implement support for additional data platform features, services, and cloud providers (e.g., Azure Synapse, BigQuery)
• Track cloud service evolution and update emulators to reflect new capabilities or changes
• Build abstractions that simplify plugging in new service behavior or data models
• Ensure emulators work seamlessly with orchestration and infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., dbt, Terraform, Airflow, CDKs)
• Gather and act on feedback from internal and external teams to prioritize high-impact integrations
• Build usage analytics and telemetry to understand adoption patterns and developer needs
• Maintain high code quality, clear architecture, and extensibility to support contributions and experimentation

• 5+ years (senior) of professional experience in backend or systems engineering, ideally within the database domain
• Strong understanding of modern databases and data warehouses, including SQL engines, query planning, storage layers, indexing, and SQL parsing/ASTs, with experience developing database features
• Hands-on experience with cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, Redshift, Athena, or BigQuery, including optimization techniques and custom parsers/transpilers
• Practical knowledge of distributed and analytical engines (e.g., Apache Spark, Trino, PostgreSQL, DuckDB) with skills in query engines, performance tuning, and integration in local and production environments
• Experience building developer tooling such as CLI tools, SDKs, and database drivers (JDBC/ODBC) or related integrations
• Proficiency in writing integration and regression tests, maintaining CI/CD pipelines, and automating test scenarios for complex data workflows
• Familiarity with Docker-based development environments (Docker & Docker Compose); containerized services for local testing; Kubernetes experience is a plus
• Experience with at least one major public cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP), ideally working with big data or database services
• Strong programming skills in Python (Java a plus); familiarity with TypeScript or Go is nice to have
• Experience contributing to open source or working with communities to gather feedback, triage issues, and guide contributors (nice to have)

• Fully remote
• Competitive salary
• Performance bonus
• Competitive share options
• Annual company retreat
• Learning budget

At LocalStack, we are shaping cloud DevX and redefining how developers interact with cloud platforms. Join to:

• Lead a critical engineering function in a fast-growing company with open-source traction and a global customer base
• Work on cutting-edge technology with a talented, passionate team
• Help evolve a product used and loved by thousands of developers worldwide

To apply, follow the LinkedIn application process or apply on our career page. Please include a short motivation outlining why you are the perfect candidate for this role. We aim to respond within 2 weeks. Note: due to high volume of applications, personalized feedback may not be possible.