Staff Software Engineer

Zinnia•New York, NY

About The Position

Zinnia is a leading technology platform focused on accelerating growth in life and annuities. They provide innovative enterprise solutions and data insights to streamline the process of buying, selling, and administering insurance products, ultimately helping more individuals secure their financial futures. The company manages over $180 billion in assets, serves more than 100 carrier clients, 2500 distributors and partners, and over 2 million policyholders, operating on core values of being bold, teaming up, and delivering value. As a Staff Engineer, you will be crucial in realizing Zinnia's product vision for modern, frictionless, and scalable API-first systems, aiming to deliver the industry's best end-to-end Life & Annuities solution. This role involves collaborating with fellow engineers to establish a reusable, predictable, and discoverable design and development framework, ensuring rapid, consistent, and maintainable solutions across the enterprise. The ideal candidate is a team player with leadership experience, exceptional API security expertise, and a proven track record of successful delivery, capable of combining architectural vision with hands-on coding skills to ensure both strategic soundness and practical implementation of solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field
10+ years of software development experience, with 4+ years in a staff engineer, architect, or technical lead role
Strong proficiency with .NET (C#) and JavaScript/TypeScript (NestJS, NextJS)
Proven ability to architect large-scale API solutions while also contributing as a hands-on coder
Strong expertise in event-driven architecture and pub/sub messaging patterns, with experience in event streaming platforms such as Apache Kafka
Expertise in API management and gateway technologies (e.g., Apigee, Kong) and proven ability to integrate with enterprise IAM systems for secure API access
Experience designing and maintaining versioned, external/internal-facing APIs
Cloud-native development experience with AWS services such as Lambda, EC2, S3, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SNS/SQS, and RDS
Strong knowledge of relational databases (e.g., MS SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra)
Working knowledge of DevOps practices (CI/CD pipelines, environment provisioning, monitoring) and containerization technologies such as Docker
Strong understanding of software design principles, patterns, and API governance
Experience working in an Agile/Scrum environment
Excellent communication, critical thinking, and leadership skills with the ability to influence and mentor teams
Commitment to continuous learning and staying up to date with the latest technologies in software development

Nice To Haves

Experience with Java and related technologies
Knowledge of the Life Insurance & Annuities domain

Responsibilities

Design, document, and evangelize API standards and best practices across all Zinnia APIs
Write high-quality, maintainable, and performant code to build reusable frameworks and services
Partner with and guide the Enterprise API team to deliver scalable and highly performant enterprise-grade APIs
Implement API gateway capabilities (traceability, monitoring, security, analytics) and recommend improvements for the full API lifecycle
Maintain high-quality API documentation using Swagger or similar tools to ensure clarity, consistency, and ease of use for internal and external consumers
Conduct code reviews and ensure alignment with architectural principles, standards, and design patterns
Make critical design decisions, provide architectural oversight, and mentor developers
Work with IAM solutions and cloud-native services to secure and scale APIs
Partner cross-functionally (product, security, DevOps, infra) to ensure API strategy aligns with enterprise goals
Stay current with emerging technologies and bring ideas to improve scalability, performance, and developer experience