Staff Software Engineer (Fullstack Backend Focused (Ruby+React))

Zendesk; Maharashtra; Hybrid; INR 2,000,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk is seeking a Staff Software Engineer in Pune, India, to lead the technical aspects of building a feature-rich system enabling company admins to manage Zendesk products. The ideal candidate will have over 9 years of full-stack engineering experience and expertise in Java, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

This hybrid role requires office attendance at least three days a week, with flexible remote work options. You will significantly contribute to technical discussions and feature development while enhancing the quality and performance of production services.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of experience in full-stack software engineering, specifically with SaaS applications.
• Proven experience with Java, Ruby on Rails, and front-end technologies.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills in English.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of features for Zendesk’s support product.
• Collaborate with Tech Leaders on complete solutions.
• Provide operational support for production services.

Skills

Full-stack software engineering

Java

Ruby on Rails

JavaScript

TypeScript

React

MySQL

Go

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Redis

Datadog

Job description

Overview

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to be the technical leader for this team. In this role, you’ll define and drive the architecture, execution strategy, and long-term technical roadmap. You’ll lead the development of a feature-rich system that helps company admins onboard, adopt, and manage Zendesk products with ease, while also empowering internal teams to integrate their solutions efficiently. If you’re passionate about building meaningful experiences, driving platform excellence, and creating extensible systems that serve both customers and internal teams, we’d love to have you on this journey. Our ideal candidate is someone who takes the lead on anything they work on and is a self-starter with projects that have the initiative to drive a project from start to finish.

Location: This role is based in Pune and requires you to work from office at least 3 days a week.

What You’ll Do

• Contribute to the code at the core of Zendesk’s support product - what you write will reach millions of people each day.
• Break complex features into granular pieces of work to facilitate incremental feedback cycles.
• Take ownership of features and collaborate with Tech Leaders to design and implement complete solutions.
• Contribute to technical discussions and decision-making with other teams and partners across the global engineering organisation.
• Prioritise and estimate work, balancing feature delivery with management of tech debt.
• Participate in and lead activities such as pairing sessions and code reviews to facilitate continuous self-improvement for the whole team.
• Work closely with designers and product managers to help define the future of the product.
• Triage customer issues in partnership with Product Managers.
• Provide operational support for our services in production.
• Actively look for ways to improve observability, performance, reliability, and security of our services.
• Show strategic forward-thinking and provide technical leadership to drive near-to-mid-term success (1-2 years).

What You Bring To The Role

• 9+ years of experience in full-stack software engineering, with expertise in building enterprise-scale SaaS or large web applications.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Ruby on Rails, Go, Scala, TypeScript, Node.js, or other object-oriented languages.
• 9+ years of experience with JavaScript and TypeScript, and frameworks like React and Redux.
• Solid experience with MySQL or similar; ability to write efficient queries and optimize performance in high-traffic environments.
• Good to have - experience/knowledge of front end technologies.
• A track record of delivering large-scale, high-quality, and resilient web systems.
• Strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills in English.
• Ability to understand and communicate sophisticated concepts clearly to engineers at different levels and non-technical partners.
• Experience solving difficult problems across multiple systems.
• Experience coaching engineers, leading brainstorming discussions, and facilitating collaborative decision-making.
• Ability to influence without authority and mentor others.
• A culture of learning, growth, and innovation.
• You’re comfortable jumping into unfamiliar codebases and languages.

Tech Stack

• You’ll be working on one of the largest Ruby on Rails codebases in the world.
• Most data is stored in MySQL and Redis.
• Occasional work in Go and Java.
• Services connect via gRPC, REST, Kafka, and GraphQL.
• Deployments are to Kubernetes using Docker via Spinnaker, on AWS. We’re confident you can learn as you go.
• Production systems are monitored with Datadog.

Please note that Zendesk can only hire candidates who are physically located and plan to work from Karnataka or Maharashtra. The location posted on the requisition indicates where this role is based.

Working Hybrid

Hybrid: The role offers a team-level hybrid experience with onsite collaboration and flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. Attendance at the local office is required for part of the week; the specific in-office schedule is determined by the hiring manager.

The Intelligent Heart Of Customer Experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please contact us at the provided address.