diff --git a/sdk/pom.xml b/sdk/pom.xml
index c49c17570901..5c6553b749a0 100644
--- a/sdk/pom.xml
+++ b/sdk/pom.xml
@@ -719,6 +719,12 @@
       <version>${avro.version}</version>
     </dependency>
 
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>org.xerial.snappy</groupId>
+      <artifactId>snappy-java</artifactId>
+      <version>1.1.2.1</version>
+    </dependency>
+
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-compress</artifactId>
diff --git a/sdk/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/dataflow/sdk/util/SerializableUtils.java b/sdk/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/dataflow/sdk/util/SerializableUtils.java
index cacba0ea1704..501b4307fc29 100644
--- a/sdk/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/dataflow/sdk/util/SerializableUtils.java
+++ b/sdk/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/dataflow/sdk/util/SerializableUtils.java
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@
 import com.google.cloud.dataflow.sdk.coders.CoderException;
 import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
 
+import org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream;
+import org.xerial.snappy.SnappyOutputStream;
+
 import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
 import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
@@ -43,7 +46,7 @@ public class SerializableUtils {
   public static byte[] serializeToByteArray(Serializable value) {
     try {
       ByteArrayOutputStream buffer = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
-      try (ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(buffer)) {
+      try (ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(new SnappyOutputStream(buffer))) {
         oos.writeObject(value);
       }
       return buffer.toByteArray();
@@ -66,7 +69,7 @@ public static Object deserializeFromByteArray(byte[] encodedValue,
       String description) {
     try {
       try (ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(
-          new ByteArrayInputStream(encodedValue))) {
+          new SnappyInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(encodedValue)))) {
         return ois.readObject();
       }
     } catch (IOException | ClassNotFoundException exn) {