Curriculum Vitae

Director of Engineering at Snap Inc.
Vienna, Austria · dominik@schnitzer.at · LinkedIn

Profile

As Director of Engineering at Snap, I am responsible for the custom Linux operating system running on SPECS. I am an engineering leader and systems architect with over 20 years of software development experience and experience managing operating system teams for AR hardware since 2016. Since the inception of SPECS, I have helped shape its operating system and initiated the Linux effort that became the foundation for Snap’s custom OS.

I lead the Platform OS, Display, Graphics, OS Porting and Browser teams, combining hands-on C/C++, Linux, AOSP and Yocto expertise with technical direction, organizational leadership and cross-functional delivery. I hold a PhD in Computer Science and have multiple patents and publications.

Experience

Snap Inc.

Vienna, Austria · November 2019 – present

  • Director of Engineering · October 2026 – present
    Responsible for the custom Linux operating system running on SPECS.
  • Senior Software Engineering Manager · March 2022 – October 2026
  • Software Engineering Manager · November 2019 – March 2022

Selected work at Snap:

  • Lead the Platform OS, Display, Graphics, OS Porting and Browser teams, setting technical direction and leading execution across embedded software and platform services.
  • Helped shape the SPECS operating system from its inception and led the Linux effort that became the foundation for Snap’s custom OS, working across Linux, AOSP, Yocto, C/C++, displays, graphics, sensors, warping and emulation.
  • Recruit, mentor and develop OS engineers and technical leads while remaining hands-on with critical architecture and programs spanning multiple teams.
  • Previously led the embedded AR team working on display controllers, graphics, AR latency and platform stacks built on the kernel and Yocto Linux.
  • Shipped AR devices: Spectacles v4 and v5.

Principal Engineer, Team Lead · DAQRI

July 2016 – November 2019 · Vienna, Austria
Vienna office acquired by Snap.

  • Founding member of the Vienna office; hired the OS team and helped build the office.
  • Led the OS team responsible for the base operating system, firmware, Linux BSP, kernel and drivers.
  • Implemented asynchronous timewarp for enterprise AR and worked on embedded ARM Linux and Xilinx FPGA development.
  • Shipped AR devices: DAQRI Smart Helmet and DAQRI Smart Glasses.

Senior Engineer · Qualcomm Austria Research Center

February 2014 – June 2016 · Vienna, Austria

  • Engineer on the SLAM research project.
  • Ported Qualcomm’s visual-inertial odometry system and SLAM tracker to the Hexagon DSP.
  • Integrated depth cameras into Android/AOSP.

Senior Research Assistant · OFAI

January 2012 – February 2014 · Vienna, Austria

  • Postdoctoral researcher and developer at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, turning research into products.
  • Lead developer of the MOTS automatic music recommendation engine for the commercially released Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 5.
  • Published music information retrieval software, including the Musly library.

Applied Research Assistant · OFAI

February 2007 – January 2012 · Vienna, Austria

Research in music information retrieval leading to my PhD thesis.

System Administrator · GRg3 Kundmanngasse

June 1999 – December 2011 · Vienna, Austria · Part time

Managed networks, servers, firewalls, VLANs, wireless networking (HP MSM), backups, single sign-on and migration to Google Apps.

Education

  • Doctor of Technical Sciences (Dr. techn./PhD), Computer Science
    Johannes Kepler University Linz · January 2008 – January 2012
  • Master of Science (MSc), Computer Science — Intelligent Systems
    TU Wien · January 2005 – December 2007
  • Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science — Software and Information Engineering
    TU Wien · January 2002 – January 2005

Technologies and leadership

  • Operating systems and embedded software: Linux, Yocto, AOSP, kernels, BSPs, drivers, platform porting and OS security.
  • Augmented reality: graphics, displays, sensors, warping, latency and emulation.
  • Languages and build tools: C/C++, Shell/sh, CMake, Autotools, Make, Conan, Git/GitHub and CI/CD.
  • Leadership: OS architecture and roadmaps, team building, mentoring and cross-functional delivery.
  • AI: advocate for AI-enabled engineering.

Languages

German (native), English (professional).

Updated October 2026.