Principal Software Engineer- Backend; Python​/Golang

Principal Software Engineer – Backend (Python/Golang)

San Jose, California, USA

Zscaler is a pioneer and global leader in zero trust security. The world’s largest businesses, critical infrastructure organizations, and government agencies rely on Zscaler to secure users, branches, applications, data & devices, and to accelerate digital transformation initiatives. Distributed across more than 160 data centers globally, the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform combined with advanced AI combats billions of cyber threats and policy violations every day and unlocks productivity gains for modern enterprises by reducing costs and complexity.

We champion an “AI Forward, People First” philosophy to help us accelerate and innovate, empowering our people to embrace their potential. If you’re driven by purpose, thrive on solving complex challenges and want to make a positive difference on a global scale, we invite you to bring your talents to Zscaler to help shape the future of cybersecurity.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our Emerging Tech Dept team. This is a hybrid role based onsite in San Jose three days a week, reporting to the Architect of Software Development Engineering.

As a key player in building the next‑generation Zero Trust networking services, you will architect Zero Trust networking services and highly distributed system components. You will focus on algorithm efficiency and memory optimization to process packets at high speeds, ensuring low latency and system responsiveness during high loads. Collaborating closely with operations, you will drive the deployment, monitoring, and scaling of systems to identify hotspots and maintain performance as our customer base grows.

• Architect scalable database schemas and data models for a multi‑tenant control plane, ensuring strict consistency across distributed relational and No
  
  SQL stores
• Design and implement secure, high‑performance APIs to orchestrate complex provisioning workflows and integrate seamlessly with existing management platforms
• Engineer high‑throughput systems using distributed caching and messaging patterns to ensure low‑latency signaling between control and data planes
• Build resilient, auto‑scaling microservices for lifecycle management and zero‑touch provisioning, ensuring seamless deployment within cloud‑native environments
• Mentor engineers and collaborate cross‑functionally to drive end‑to‑end product delivery, while leading advanced troubleshooting to ensure successful customer deployments

• 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.
• You are a problem‑solver. You seek out challenges because you are energized by finding solutions, knowing that solving the hard problems delivers the biggest impact.
• You are customer‑obsessed. You build deep empathy for the customer—both internal and external—and anchor your decisions in solving their real‑world problems.
• You operate with urgency. You understand that in a high‑growth environment, speed and quality are not mutually exclusive. You have a relentless focus on execution and a bias for action, delivering high‑impact results quickly to win for the customer and the team.

• 15+ years of experience in Python or Golang coding in a highly distributed and enterprise‑scale environment
• Design and development skills for high‑volume production applications
• Hands‑on experience working with Apache Kafka, Druid, Elasticsearch, Redis (or other distributed cache) and Postgre
  
  SQL in a REST model
• Experience with data serialization techniques and data stores for persisting events
• Experience building solutions based on Microservices architecture within cloud infrastructure services such as AWS, Azure or GCP

• Experience working with graph databases such as Neo4J or AWS Neptune
• Experience developing Graph
  
  QL APIs…