# Senior Staff Software Engineer - Query Engine at Dremio

> Remote · Portugal · Staff · Software engineering · open. Source: https://alderhq.app/jobs/greenhouse%3Adremio%3A7979074003 (read 2026-11-06).

## Facts (observed)

- Company: [Dremio](https://alderhq.app/companies/dremio)
- Location text: Portugal - Remote; Portugal - Remote
- Where it can be done from (inferred): Remote · Portugal (evidence: "Remote role open to APAC / Asia")
- Posted: 2026-09-07 (60 days ago)
- First seen by alder: 2026-11-02 · last verified: 2026-11-04
- Reposted: 0 times · edited: 1 times
- Apply on the employer's site: https://www.dremio.com/careers/job-postings/?gh_jid=7979074003
- Skills listed (inferred): Java, AWS, GCP, Azure, SQL

## Pay and sponsorship

- Posted pay: not posted
- Market band for similar posted roles (Portugal, n 5): p25 €70k, median €80k, p75 €80k
- H-1B filings at this company for similar roles, FY26: 1 ([US DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/performance))
- Licensed UK sponsor: registered as "Dremio Limited" (checked 2026-11-03, [register](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers))

## Description (the employer's text)

### Be Part of Building the Future

Dremio is the unified lakehouse platform for self-service analytics and AI, serving hundreds of global enterprises, including Maersk, Amazon, Regeneron, NetApp, and S&P Global. Customers rely on Dremio for cloud, hybrid, and on-prem lakehouses to power their data mesh, data warehouse migration, data virtualization, and unified data access use cases. Based on open source technologies, including Apache Iceberg and Apache Arrow, Dremio provides an open lakehouse architecture enabling the fastest time to insight and platform flexibility at a fraction of the cost. Learn more at www.dremio.com.

### About the role

Dremio's Query Planner & Reflections team owns the SQL planner and optimizer, built on Apache Calcite, and the reflections engine that transparently rewrites queries to use pre-computed materializations instead of raw source data. The team sits between SQL and execution, owning the systems that turn queries into efficient plans and make them fast.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you'll set technical direction for these systems: driving ambiguous, cross-team initiatives, raising the bar through design and code review, and growing other senior engineers. Your work will directly affect query performance, correctness, and cost across Dremio's cloud data platform.

### What you'll be doing

- Set technical direction: Define architecture and roadmap for the query planner and reflections systems, including next-generation features.
- Build the planner: Design, implement, test, and support planning rules, cost-based optimization, query rewriting, and reflection matching and substitution.
- Own complex initiatives: Lead design and delivery of projects that cross team boundaries, working with Query Execution, Catalog, Datalake, and Product.
- Work with open source: Work deeply with Apache Calcite and Apache Iceberg, and drive contributions upstream where it benefits Dremio.
- Diagnose difficult problems: Investigate query planning correctness and performance issues, including reflection matching, using query profiles, telemetry, benchmarks, logs, and production data.
- Design for every deployment: Build systems that run correctly across Dremio's deployment models and public clouds.
- Use AI-assisted development tools: Apply AI tools to code comprehension, debugging, test generation, documentation, and incident analysis.
- Apply engineering judgment: Validate AI-generated code and recommendations through review, testing, benchmarking, and engineering judgment.
- Raise the engineering bar: Participate in design and code reviews, set technical standards, and mentor senior and staff-level engineers.
- Partner across the company: Work with Product on multi-quarter roadmap decisions and with Support and field engineering on the highest-impact customer issues.
### What we're looking for

- Software engineering experience: 10+ years developing production software, including 5+ years of strong Java.
- Query planning and optimization: Deep understanding of cost-based optimization and rule-based query rewriting, ideally with hands-on experience in Apache Calcite or a similar framework.
- Database fundamentals: Strong knowledge of SQL, query processing, performance, and schema design.
- Computer science fundamentals: Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, concurrency, and multithreaded programming.
- Technical leadership: Track record of driving system-level architecture decisions, leading complex cross-team initiatives, and mentoring senior engineers.
- Access control: Experience with role-based or fine-grained access control in data platforms or database systems is a plus.
- Cloud and storage: Understanding of distributed file systems and object stores such as S3, ADLS, or HDFS; experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Engineering judgment: Ability to evaluate tradeoffs, validate solutions rigorously, and make sound decisions when working with unfamiliar or AI-assisted implementations.
- Communication and ownership: Ability to navigate ambiguous, cross-org problems independently, with strong communication skills and a commitment to delivering high-quality software.

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Data: alder (https://alderhq.app). Cite https://alderhq.app/jobs/greenhouse%3Adremio%3A7979074003 and the date you read it. Observed facts come from the employer's own listing; location reach, level, family and skills are inferences.