Principal Software Development Engineer

Zillow

77d • $191,300 - $305,700

About The Position

The Copilot Experience team is responsible for creating AI‑powered user experiences that enable users to interact with Zillow’s agentic skills, providing them with a true copilot throughout their home-finding journey. We’re building application features that adapt to our users, with dynamic UIs, personalized content, and multimodal interaction through text, voice, and images. Our mission is to set the bar for how consumers collaborate with AI in real estate, from search and discovery through decision-making and action. In this role, you will play a pivotal role in evolving our UX framework and architectural components to support multiple AI experiences at scale, on Zillow as well as with 3P integrations. You will balance architecture, project leadership, and hands-on development to help us deliver our most critical projects. Success requires deep modern web development expertise (e.g., React, TypeScript, CSS) and robust microservices experience across the middle tier, including backend‑for‑frontend (BFF) patterns. You will champion operational excellence, employ modern design patterns, and set high bars for performance, scalability, and resilience. You will also mentor and guide other engineers, establish best practices, and collaborate across teams so multiple product groups can contribute features and we can continuously integrate new agentic AI skills.

Requirements

• Master’s in Computer Science/Computer Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.
• Proficiency in web development with React, TypeScript, and CSS building high‑quality, performant user experiences.
• Strong skills in modern programming languages (e.g., Java, C#, Golang) applied to production services.
• Experience designing and operating microservices and middle‑tier systems, including backend‑for‑frontend (BFF) patterns, databases, caching, and related.
• Demonstrated focus on operational excellence: performance, reliability, observability, testing strategy, and CI/CD.
• 6–10 years of experience delivering end‑user applications at scale.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building AI applications using LLMs and other generative tools; familiarity with prompt engineering techniques, tool integration and orchestration, and multimodal input/output is a plus.
• Familiarity with AI-coding assistants (e.g. Cursor) for rapid prototyping and feature development.
• Test automation experience using frameworks like Playwright or Cypress.

Responsibilities

• Evolve the UX architecture for AI copilot experiences on Zillow’s web and mobile platforms, as well as 3P integrations, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, and scale.
• Lead and ship high‑impact, consumer‑facing features that showcase multimodal AI (text, voice, image/video) and dynamic, AI‑personalized interfaces.
• Build platform and BFF layers that enable multiple teams to contribute new capabilities and rapidly onboard additional agentic AI skills.
• Rapidly prototype experiences to validate concepts, inform design, and de‑risk complex initiatives while maintaining a path to production quality.
• Mentor engineers, drive technical writing quality, set engineering standards, and influence cross‑functional partners without formal authority.
• Own and improve operational excellence—observability, performance, CI/CD quality, and safe rollouts—across critical consumer experiences.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverages.
• Parental leave and family benefits.
• Retirement contributions.
• Paid time off.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Master's degree
• Number of Employees: 251-500 employees