Senior Staff Software Development Engineer - AI Platform

Zscaler Softech; Bengaluru, Pune District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

Education reimbursement

Parental leave

Job summary

Zscaler in Bengaluru/Bangalore seeks a Sr. Staff AI Platform Engineer to design, scale, and maintain enterprise cloud infrastructure for production AI/ML workloads. You will drive automation, observability, and platform governance while enabling AI and data teams to deliver reliable, secure services.

You will own CI/CD pipelines, build a robust EKS-based stack, and lead incidents with a focus on MTTA/MTTR. This is an on-site role with a chance to mentor junior engineers and shape platform

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience as a Platform Engineer / SRE / DevOps
• 3+ years supporting AI/ML or data platform infrastructure
• Deep hands-on AWS experience (EKS, Lambda, ECS, VPC, IAM, S3)
• Strong Terraform IaC design and GitLab CI/CD pipelines
• Centralized observability with Prometheus & Grafana, alerting & incident response

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable AWS infrastructure for AI/ML workloads
• Own and evolve GitLab CI/CD pipelines for platform services
• Architect centralized observability stack with Prometheus and Grafana
• Define and track DORA metrics for reliability improvements
• Implement security best practices and mentor engineers

Skills

AWS

Terraform

GitLab CI/CD

Prometheus

Grafana

Kubernetes

Python

Tools

EKS

Lambda

ECS

VPC

IAM

S3

Job description

Sr. Staff Software Development Engineer - AI Platform

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 Sr. Staff AI Platform Engineer to join our team. This is an On-site role based in Bangalore/Pune, reporting to the Senior Manager in the IT Data Strategy department. In this position, you will design, scale, and maintain enterprise cloud infrastructure and platform capabilities to support production AI/ML workloads. Operating within the IT Data Strategy team, you will drive infrastructure automation, observability, and platform governance while empowering AI and data engineering teams to deliver high-impact solutions reliably and securely.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

• Design, build, and maintain scalable, secure, and highly available AWS infrastructure (EKS, Lambda, ECS, VPC, IAM) for AI/ML workloads using Terraform, following IaC best practices including reusable modules, remote state management, and environment-based blueprints
• Own and continuously evolve GitLab CI/CD pipelines for AI platform services, automating build, test, security scanning, and multi-environment deployment workflows to enable fast, reliable, and repeatable releases
• Architect a centralized observability stack using Prometheus and Grafana with golden-signal dashboards across AI/ML services and infrastructure, design intelligent alerting strategies (Alertmanager, PagerDuty, OpsGenie), and lead incident response, root-cause analysis, and postmortems to improve MTTA/MTTR
• Define and track DORA metrics to drive delivery and reliability improvements, while building self-healing, auto-scaling, and cost-optimized infrastructure for AI/ML services (LLM inference, vector databases, agent frameworks) on Kubernetes (EKS)
• Implement infrastructure security best practices, establish platform governance standards, partner with AI/ML and data engineering teams on production-grade AI/RAG deployments, and mentor junior/mid-level engineers through design and code reviews

Who You Are (Success Profile)

You act like an owner with a passion for the mission, operating with integrity and navigating seamlessly between high-level platform strategy and hands‑on execution. You are a high-trust collaborator who is ambitious for the overall team, fostering an open feedback culture delivered with clarity and respect to build lasting trust. You are driven by innovation and deep technical curiosity, continuously seeking secure, scalable, and modern solutions to complex platform engineering challenges. You champion simplicity by distilling complex technical architecture, user needs, and operational concepts into clear, actionable plans and focused communication. You are data-driven, leveraging analytics and measurable metrics to guide informed engineering decisions, evaluate truth, and optimize reliability.

What We’re Looking for (Minimum Qualifications)

• Demonstrated curiosity and active exploration of AI tools, with a proven history of integrating new technologies to enhance daily workflows and augment problem-solving
• 8+ years of experience as a Platform Engineer / Site Reliability Engineer / DevOps Engineer, including 3+ years supporting AI/ML or data platform infrastructure, with deep hands‑on expertise in AWS (EKS, Lambda, ECS, VPC, IAM, S3)
• Strong hands‑on experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform (modules, workspaces, remote state) and designing/maintaining CI/CD pipelines with GitLab CI/CD (or equivalent), including runners and deployment automation
• Proven expertise in centralized observability using Prometheus and Grafana (custom exporters, dashboard design, alerting rules), along with experience designing and tuning alerting/on‑call systems (Alertmanager, PagerDuty, OpsGenie) and owning incident response for production services
• Solid, hands‑on understanding of DevOps/DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, MTTR) and how to use them to drive engineering improvement
• Experience deploying and operating containerized applications on Kubernetes (EKS), including Helm charts and autoscaling (HPA, Cluster Autoscaler, Karpenter), combined with strong scripting skills in Python (and/or Go/Bash) and the ability to work independently and lead complex infrastructure initiatives with excellent communication skills befitting a Staff‑level engineer

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience with LiteLLM (including multi‑geo/multi‑region deployment patterns), distributed compute frameworks like Ray.io/Anyscale, workflow engines like Temporal, and agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, or LlamaIndex
• Working knowledge of vector database platforms (Qdrant, Pinecone, Weaviate), memory/context layers like ZEP, LLMOps/MLOps frameworks and practices (model registry, prompt versioning, feedback loops, MLflow/Kubeflow), and LLM observability/evaluation tooling such as Arize Phoenix
• Exposure to GitOps workflows (ArgoCD/Flux), log aggregation and distributed tracing (Loki, ELK/OpenSearch, Jaeger/Tempo), cloud cost optimization (FinOps), and security/compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001) in cloud‑native environments

Join us

At Zscaler, we are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve and the customers we work with. We foster an inclusive environment that values all backgrounds and perspectives, emphasizing collaboration and belonging. Join us in our mission to make doing business seamless and secure.

Our Benefits program is one of the most important ways we support our employees.

Zscaler proudly offers comprehensive and inclusive benefits to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families throughout their life stages, including:

• Various health plans
• Time off plans for vacation and sick time
• Parental leave options
• Retirement options
• Education reimbursement
• In‑office perks, and more!

Learn more about Zscaler's hybrid working model and benefits here .

Application information

By applying for this role, you adhere to applicable laws, regulations, and Zscaler policies, including those related to security and privacy standards and guidelines.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Zscaler is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all individuals. We strive to create a workplace where employees are treated with respect and have the chance to succeed. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy or related medical conditions), age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. See more information by clicking on the Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal link.

Pay Transparency

Zscaler complies with all applicable federal, state, and local pay transparency rules. Zscaler is committed to providing reasonable support (called accommodations or adjustments) in our recruiting processes for candidates who are differently abled, have long term conditions, mental health conditions or sincerely held religious beliefs, or who are neurodivergent or require pregnancy‑related support.

Experience Level

Senior Level