Sr. Staff Software Development Engineer

About Zscaler Zscaler accelerates digital transformation to ensure our customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure. As an AI-forward enterprise, we are constantly pushing the envelope, leveraging the world’s largest security data lake to power our cloud-native Zero Trust Exchange platform. This innovation protects our customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location. Here, impact in your role matters more than title and trust is built on results. We say, impact over activity. We seek innovators who actively use AI to amplify their impact and who thrive in an environment where we leverage intelligent systems to stay ahead of evolving threats. We believe in transparency and value constructive, honest debate—we’re focused on getting to the best ideas, faster. We build high-performing teams that can make an impact quickly and with high quality. To do this, we are building a culture of execution centered on customer obsession, collaboration, ownership, and accountability. We value high-impact, high-accountability with a sense of urgency where you’re enabled to do your best work and embrace your potential. If you’re driven by purpose, thrive on solving complex challenges, and want to be part of the team that’s helping to secure the AI age, we invite you to bring your talents to Zscaler and help shape the future of cybersecurity. Role We are looking for a Sr. Staff Engineer to join our team. This is a Hybrid role, reporting to the Senior Manager, Software Engineering in the Federal and Sovereign Clouds department. As a passionate engineer you will work with a team of cloud architects in building scalable, high performance backend applications for our cloud engineering org. You will play a pivotal role in enhancing our multitenant architecture and global footprint for the world’s largest cloud security platform. What you’ll do (Role Expectations) - Designing and implementing scalable, high-performance backend services and APIs - Ensuring code quality by writing and maintaining unit, integration, and performance tests; monitor, debug, and optimize system performance - Mentoring junior engineers, fostering their growth, and upholding best practices through active participation in code reviews - Collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver integrated solutions and contribute to Agile/Scrum processes like sprint planning and retrospectives - Participating in on-call rotation to support a highly available engineering platform and ensure compliance with federal guidelines Who You Are (Success Profile) - You thrive in ambiguity. You're comfortable building the path as you walk it. You thrive in a dynamic environment, seeing ambiguity not as a hindrance, but as the raw material to build something meaningful. - You act like an owner. Your passion for the mission fuels your bias for action. You operate with integrity because you genuinely care about the outcome. True ownership involves leveraging dynamic range: the ability to navigate seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands-on execution. - You are a problem-solver. You love running towards the challenges because you are laser-focused on finding the solution, knowing that solving the hard problems delivers the biggest impact. - You are a high-trust collaborator. You are ambitious for the team, not just yourself. You embrace our challenge culture by giving and receiving ongoing feedback—knowing that candor delivered with clarity and respect is the truest form of teamwork and the fastest way to earn trust. - You are a learner. You have a true growth mindset and are obsessed with your own development, actively seeking feedback to become a better partner and a stronger teammate. You love what you do and you do it with purpose. What We’re Looking for (Minimum Qualifications) - Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience leveraging, securing, or positioning AI-driven solutions to optimize outcomes within your functional domain - 8+ years of experience with proficiency coding in Java / Golang or similar - Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and one or more major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) - Expertise in designing and maintaining large-scale distributed systems with strong fundamentals of scaling, availability and design trade offs - Exceptional problem-solving skills for creating robust solutions and resolving complex issues with root cause analysis What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications) - Experience leveraging LLMs or AI code-assistance platforms to accelerate distributed systems development, code refactoring, and automated testing pipelines - Strong understanding of DevOps automation workflows and CI/CD pipelines - Excellent communication and cross-team collaboration skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, make high-impact technical decisions, and deliver results with minimal