Zscaler
About this role
Zscaler runs a cloud native zero trust security platform built on what it describes as the world's largest security data lake, securing connections between users, devices and applications. This role is on the engineering team that built that platform. You work on high scale systems, give architectural guidance across the service and product, and set the practices for coding, testing, observability and CI/CD that keep services production ready. There is also a cross team component: leading work on performance optimisation, reliability and adoption of new tooling to speed up delivery. The stack is Java in a highly distributed enterprise scale environment with Kafka, Druid and Elasticsearch, plus AWS or Azure cloud services, and the role includes being on call and writing RCAs after cloud incidents. This is a good example of why the years matter: the title says Senior, the minimum qualification says 3 or more years.
Who this is for
What the posting asks for, listed by Zscaler as minimum qualifications: demonstrated curiosity and active use of AI tools with a history of integrating new technology into daily workflows, 3 or more years of Java in a highly distributed and enterprise scale environment with experience in Kafka, Druid and Elasticsearch, experience being on call and handling cloud incidents including writing root cause analyses, working knowledge of cloud infrastructure services on AWS or Azure, and a Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
Preferred qualifications, described as what will make you stand out: experience building full CI/CD systems using Kubernetes and web service frameworks, experience building reliable and extensible data tiers for large scale web services with Postgres and Redis, and experience with identity and access management systems such as Okta, SAML protocols and OAuth.
The real day to day: understanding how to build and operate high scale systems, providing service and product wide architectural guidance and driving technical decisions, establishing and enforcing best practices for coding, testing, observability and CI/CD to keep services production ready, and driving cross team collaboration on performance optimisation, reliability improvements and adoption of new technology to accelerate feature velocity.
Zscaler also publishes a success profile: comfort with ambiguity and building the path as you walk it, acting like an owner with a bias for action, running toward hard problems, and being a high trust collaborator who puts team success first.
Location and setup: the posting lists the location as India and is tagged hybrid, reporting to a Senior Director of Software Engineering. The location field on this posting reads "India, Update Location", so confirm the specific city with the recruiter before applying.
Honest fit guidance: the mismatch between the Senior title and the 3 year minimum is worth acting on, because engineers at 3 to 4 years often filter out anything labelled Senior and would never see this. The AI tooling requirement is listed first among the minimum qualifications, not as a nice to have, which tells you something about how the team expects to work. Being on call is explicitly part of the job.
Preferred qualifications, described as what will make you stand out: experience building full CI/CD systems using Kubernetes and web service frameworks, experience building reliable and extensible data tiers for large scale web services with Postgres and Redis, and experience with identity and access management systems such as Okta, SAML protocols and OAuth.
The real day to day: understanding how to build and operate high scale systems, providing service and product wide architectural guidance and driving technical decisions, establishing and enforcing best practices for coding, testing, observability and CI/CD to keep services production ready, and driving cross team collaboration on performance optimisation, reliability improvements and adoption of new technology to accelerate feature velocity.
Zscaler also publishes a success profile: comfort with ambiguity and building the path as you walk it, acting like an owner with a bias for action, running toward hard problems, and being a high trust collaborator who puts team success first.
Location and setup: the posting lists the location as India and is tagged hybrid, reporting to a Senior Director of Software Engineering. The location field on this posting reads "India, Update Location", so confirm the specific city with the recruiter before applying.
Honest fit guidance: the mismatch between the Senior title and the 3 year minimum is worth acting on, because engineers at 3 to 4 years often filter out anything labelled Senior and would never see this. The AI tooling requirement is listed first among the minimum qualifications, not as a nice to have, which tells you something about how the team expects to work. Being on call is explicitly part of the job.
Apply on company site
Opens job-boards.greenhouse.io, the employer's own application page. Applying is always free.