Principal Software Development Engineer (Microservices)

Zscaler•San Jose, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

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 Principal Software Development Engineer (Microservices) to join our team in a hybrid capacity based out of San Jose, CA (3 days a week in office), reporting to the Senior Director of Engineering in the ZIA Engineering department. You will work on the control plane for the Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) product, which has redefined how security services are delivered in the cloud. Because our platform has redefined cloud security, our underlying technology must continuously evolve to meet massive scale. We are seeking engineers experienced in designing and navigating complex distributed architectures to help us innovate and elevate our foundational tech stack.

Requirements

10+ years in software development with strong experience specializing in production-grade microservices
Strong proficiency in Java (Spring Boot), Go, or Rust
Expertise in distributed data patterns (CQRS, Event Sourcing) and event-driven communication (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or SQS)
Extensive hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes within AWS, Azure, or GCP environments
Proficiency in both SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (Cassandra, MongoDB, or Cosmos DB) database design and scaling

Nice To Haves

Experience with Service Mesh technologies such as Istio or Linkerd
Practical knowledge of chaos engineering and advanced performance testing tools
Active contributions to open-source projects or technical community leadership

Responsibilities

Lead the technical roadmap to modernize enterprise platforms using API-first design and microservices architecture
Design, develop, and deploy highly resilient, low-latency, event-driven solutions while maintaining ownership from API tiers to back-end services
Drive a culture of quality by setting coding standards, performing code reviews, and championing TDD/BDD practices and mentorship
Partner with Product, DevOps, and System Architects to translate complex business needs into scalable, high-performance technical solutions
Manage service lifecycles via Docker/Kubernetes and ensure system health using observability tools like Prometheus/Grafana and use AI-powered tools for problem solving & engineering efficiency