--- title: 'Senior Staff Software Engineer - Query Execution at Dremio' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-query-execution-dremio-portugal-m1th1ckkzwcd' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-09' --- # Senior Staff Software Engineer - Query Execution at Dremio - **Company:** Dremio - **Location:** Portugal - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-07 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09 - **Apply:** https://www.dremio.com/careers/job-postings/?gh_jid=7979074003 ## Job description 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.](http://www.dremio.com/) ## About the role Dremio’s Query Execution team builds the runtime responsible for executing analytical queries at scale. The team sits between query planning and table scans, owning the systems that turn query plans into efficient, reliable execution. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you’ll work on query operators, expression evaluation, memory management, execution scheduling, runtime planning, and performance optimization. Your work will directly affect query performance, scalability, and reliability across Dremio’s cloud data platform. ## What you’ll be doing - Build the execution engine: Design, implement, test, and support query operators, expression evaluation, execution scheduling, runtime planning, and resource management. - Improve runtime performance: Optimize vectorized processing, concurrency, parallelism, memory usage, data exchange, and disk spilling. - Diagnose difficult problems: Investigate query correctness and performance issues using query profiles, profiling tools, telemetry, benchmarks, logs, and production data. - Optimize Java and the JVM: Improve CPU utilization, allocation behavior, garbage collection, thread behavior, and other runtime characteristics. - Collaborate across the query engine: Work with Query Planner, Datalake, Product, Support, and field engineering teams on end-to-end query improvements. - 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, contribute to technical direction, and mentor other engineers. ## What we’re looking for - Software engineering experience: 5+ years developing production software, preferably in database systems, query execution, distributed systems, or related areas. - Programming skills: Strong Java skills; experience with C++ is a plus. - Computer science fundamentals: Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, concurrency, multithreaded programming, and asynchronous programming. - Database and distributed systems knowledge: Understanding of database internals, query processing, distributed execution, and performance optimization. - Performance engineering experience: Experience profiling and optimizing CPU, memory, garbage collection, thread behavior, or other runtime characteristics. - Problem-solving ability: Ability to solve ambiguous technical problems and work effectively across team boundaries. - Engineering judgment: Ability to evaluate tradeoffs, validate solutions rigorously, and make sound decisions when working with unfamiliar or AI-assisted implementations. - Communication and ownership: Strong communication skills, a sense of ownership, and a commitment to delivering high-quality software. Bonus points if you have - Query engines: Distributed query engines, database engines, or large-scale data processing systems. - Execution techniques: Vectorized execution, query operators, expression evaluation, code generation, or runtime optimization. - Runtime systems: JVM profiling, memory management, caching, networking, data exchange, execution scheduling, or disk spilling. - Data platforms: Apache Arrow, Apache Iceberg, Parquet, Avro, Spark, Hadoop, or cloud object stores. - Open source: Contributing to open-source projects. ## What we value At Dremio, we hold ourselves to high standards when it comes to People, Thinking, and Action. Our Gnarlies (that's what we call our employees) communicate with clarity, drive accountability, and are respectful towards each other. We confront brutal facts and focus on results while operating with a sense of urgency and building a "flywheel". People who like to jump in and drive momentum will thrive in our #GnarlyLife. Dremio is an equal opportunity employer supporting workforce diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other unlawful factor. Dremio is committed to providing any necessary accommodations for individuals with disabilities within our application and interview process. To request accommodation due to a disability, please inform your recruiter. Dremio has policies in place to protect the personal information that employees and applicants disclose to us. Please click [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CB96QFmOX-bFy48YFOe2GO5lmdawOpKKBj8DpTgsuNg/edit?usp=sharing) to review the privacy notice. Important Security Notice for Candidates At Dremio, we uphold trust and transparency as paramount values in all our interactions with customers, partners, employees, and the general public. We have been targeted by individuals creating fake domains similar to ours to scam prospects and candidates. Please note that all official communications from us will be from an @dremio.com domain. If you suspect you've been targeted by a scam, it's imperative to report the incident to your local law enforcement agencies. For more information about this type of scam, please refer to Dremio's official statement [here](https://www.dremio.com/blog/stay-alert-for-fraudulent-recruitment-attempts-that-falsely-claim-association-with-dremio/). Dremio is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with the Company. ## About Dremio ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Dremio provides the Agentic Lakehouse, an open, high-performance data lakehouse platform built on Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow, and Apache Polaris, designed to accelerate AI and analytical workloads across all enterprise data. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series E) - **Headquarters**: Santa Clara, California, USA - **Founded**: 2015 - **Founders**: Tomer Shiran (CEO), Jacques Nadeau ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Data Infrastructure, Data Analytics, AI/ML Infrastructure - **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise (trusted by Shell, TD Bank, Michelin, Amazon, Vanguard, World Bank Group, Maersk, E.ON, RWE) - **Mission or purpose statement**: To empower every knowledge worker and AI agent with instant, governed access to enterprise data through any LLM or tool of their choice. ## Products & Services - **Dremio Agentic Lakehouse**: An open, high-performance data lakehouse platform built on Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow, and Apache Polaris. It features an AI Semantic Layer for business context, federated queries across any source without ETL, and autonomous management (clustering, optimization, compaction). It is designed to connect AI agents and analytics tools to enterprise data. - **Apache Polaris (Catalog)**: Dremio is a co-creator of Polaris, the leading Iceberg catalog, providing a fully managed and supported catalog with fine-grained and role-based access control for end-to-end governance. - **Apache Arrow (Engine)**: Dremio is a co-creator of Apache Arrow, the leading columnar, in-memory representation and interchange, which powers Dremio's intelligent query engine with LLVM-based code generation for maximum CPU efficiency. - **AI Semantic Layer**: Provides business context (metrics, definitions, relationships) to AI agents, ensuring they draw from the same source of truth and deliver accurate, trusted insights. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (Private company). Dremio has raised over $400M in total funding. - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of over $400M (Series E). Trusted by 2,000+ companies. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Key investors include Sapphire Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and others. Partners include AWS, Snowflake (via integrations), and others. - **Growth Signals**: Dremio is a lead contributor to Apache Iceberg and co-creator of Apache Arrow and Apache Polaris. In 2025, SAP announced its intent to acquire Dremio, signaling a major exit and validation of the technology. The company has 150,000+ users and serves 2,000+ companies. ## Competitive Advantages - **Open Standards Leadership**: As a co-creator of Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow, and Apache Polaris, Dremio is deeply embedded in the open-source data ecosystem, ensuring interoperability and preventing vendor lock-in. - **Agentic Lakehouse**: The only lakehouse platform built specifically for AI agents, with an integrated AI Semantic Layer that provides business context and governance, ensuring AI agents deliver accurate, trusted answers. - **Zero ETL**: Federated queries allow users to access data across any source without moving or copying it, reducing complexity and cost. - **Autonomous Management**: The lakehouse self-optimizes with automatic clustering, compaction, and query acceleration (Autonomous Reflections), reducing administrative overhead. - **Performance**: Claims 10x faster query performance and 61-73% savings on data reads (per Nucleus Research). ## Strategic Focus - **AI-First Operations**: Dremio is embedding AI across all functions (engineering, sales, support) and building its platform specifically for AI agents. - **Open Standards Leadership**: Deepening its role as a key contributor to Apache Iceberg, Arrow, and Polaris to ensure interoperability and community-driven innovation. - **Agentic Data Platform**: The primary strategic focus is on becoming the definitive data platform for AI agents, providing a unified semantic layer and governed access for any LLM or tool. - **Growth & Scale**: Following the announced acquisition by SAP, the strategic focus will shift toward integration and scaling within SAP's ecosystem. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Dremio's culture is built on curiosity, urgency, and the belief that data can transform how people work. Core values include "Be Curious, Move Urgently," "Deliver Outcomes, Not Adoption," "Empower the Knowledge Worker," "Keep It Simple," and "Operate AI-First." - **Work Environment**: Hybrid workplace model. The company emphasizes "Focus on Results" and believes different roles call for different work environments. - **Perks & Benefits**: Pre-IPO stock options, volunteer time off, local benefits in each country, and a strong focus on learning and development (career goals, continuous feedback, "Gnarly Buddy" program). - **Recognition**: Named one of the "2022 Best Places to Work in the Bay Area" by the San Francisco Business Times. - **Engineering Culture**: Strong emphasis on open-source contribution (Apache Iceberg, Arrow, Polaris). The company is scaling fast and thinking in terms of scalability to serve hundreds and thousands of customers. The culture values clear communication, accountability, and respect. - **Team**: Employees are called "Gnarlies," and the mascot is "Gnarly the Narwhal." The company emphasizes a "gnarly" attitude of achieving unprecedented outcomes. ## Sources 1. [dremio.com](https://www.dremio.com/about/) 2. [dremio.com](https://www.dremio.com/) 3. [dremio.com](https://www.dremio.com/careers/) 4. [dremio.com](https://www.dremio.com/why-dremio/) 5. [dremio.com](https://www.dremio.com/careers/job-postings/) ## Other roles at Dremio - [Software Engineer - Clients and Drivers](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-clients-and-drivers-dremio-portugal-arbh4za948g7) — Portugal - [Software Engineer - Developer Experience](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-developer-experience-dremio-portugal-bh05kp6rqt47) — Portugal - [Senior Software Engineer - Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-platform-dremio-portugal-0emc2f9rs91c) — Portugal - [Future Opportunities](https://feeny.ai/job/future-opportunities-dremio-remote-bkrt600ryh84)