Sr. Staff Software Development Engineer - Network, Security, LLM

Confirmed live in the last 24 hours

Zscaler

Compensation

$154,000 - $220,000/year

San Jose, California, USA

Hybrid

Posted March 4, 2026

Job Description

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 Senior Staff Software Development Engineer to join us as a founding member of our AI Security Team. This is a hybrid role for San Jose, CA, reporting to the Director of Software Engineering within the Emerging Tech org.

You will be responsible for designing and implementing core infrastructure components and distributed systems, serving as a foundational architect for our AI security solution. This high-impact role focuses on scaling security infrastructure to support hundreds of millions of users, collaborating with stakeholders across the development lifecycle to drive innovation and technical excellence.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

Architect, develop, and optimize a low-latency, high-throughput AI Security plane utilizing Rust, specifically leveraging its async/await model for highly efficient I/O and service-oriented architecture
Build resilient, distributed, and scalable systems, emphasizing concurrency, fault tolerance, and robust messaging protocols
Implement and maintain gRPC services and APIs to ensure seamless integration of the AI Security plane with control and orchestration infrastructure
Systematically enhance performance across the entire stack, including LLM models, by employing profiling tools for both kernel-space and user-space components
Lead complex, multi-functional projects and initiatives, defining the technical roadmap and driving execution across teams

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

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