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

Zendesk Technologies Private Limited (India); Pune District; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to act as technical leader for the team in Pune. You will define architecture, drive the long-term technical roadmap, and own major features across SaaS products used by admins and customers.

You will guide cross-functional teams, mentor engineers, and partner with product managers to shape the future of Zendesk’s platform. This role requires being onsite at least 3 days a week in Pune.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of experience in full-stack software engineering for enterprise-scale SaaS.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Ruby on Rails, GoLang, Scala, TypeScript, NodeJs or similar OO language.
• 9+ years with JavaScript and TypeScript, with React/Redux.
• Experience with MySQL or similar; writing efficient queries and optimizing performance.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the core codebase that serves millions of users daily.
• Break complex features into granular work for incremental feedback.
• Own features and collaborate with Tech Leaders to design and implement solutions.
• Lead technical discussions across global engineering teams and partners.
• Prioritize work and manage tech debt while delivering features.
• Participate in pairing sessions and code reviews to improve the team.
• Collaborate with designers and product managers to shape the product's future.
• Triage customer issues with Product Managers and provide production support.
• Improve observability, performance, reliability, and security of services.
• Provide technical leadership for near- to mid-term success (1-2 years).

Skills

Full-stack software engineering

Java

Ruby on Rails

GoLang

Scala

Typescript

NodeJs

React

Redux

JavaScript

Tools

MySQL

Redis

Go

Java

Kubernetes

Docker

Spinnaker

AWS

Kafka

GraphQL

REST APIs

gRPC

Datadog

Job description

Job Description

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 has the initiative to drive a project from start to finish. This role is based in Pune and requires you to work from office at least 3 days a week.

What you’ll get to do each day

• 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 the 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 the 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 our 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 the 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 any of the programming languages - Java, Ruby on Rails, GoLang, Scala, Typescript, NodeJs or any other object oriented language.


• 9+ years of experience working with JavaScript and TypeScript, as well as frameworks like React and Redux.


• Solid experience with MySQL or similar. A knack for writing efficient queries and optimizing 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 - you’ll collaborate with our other product teams around the globe.


• The ability to understand and communicate sophisticated concepts in a relevant and considerate manner.


• Explain and reason your technical decisions clearly and effectively to engineers of different levels and non-technical partners.


• Experience solving difficult problems across multiple systems.


• Experience coaching engineers, leading brainstorming discussions, and facilitating engineers working together to make decisions in a collaborative environment.


• Ability to influence without authority, inspire 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 of the team’s data is stored in MySQL and Redis. We occasionally work in other adjacent services in Go and Java. Our services connect with other services via a combination of gRPC, REST APIs, Kafka event streams, and GraphQL. Our services are deployed to Kubernetes using Docker via Spinnaker, running on AWS. We don’t require previous experience with these specific technologies; we’re confident you can learn as we go. We monitor and observe our production systems using Datadog.

Hybrid

Please note that Zendesk can only hire candidates who are physically located and plan to work from Karnataka or Maharashtra. Please refer to the location posted on the requisition for where this role is based. Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

Equal Opportunity & Inclusion

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre‑employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e‑mail to [e-mail] with your specific accommodation request.

Our Vision

Zendesk is on a mission to simplify the complexity of business and make it easy for companies and customers to create connections. Our customer experience software unlocks the power of billions of interactions, enabling businesses to build rich, meaningful relationships with their customers.

Workplace Culture

Our offices reflect the global cities we call home, and have spaces for collaboration, quiet, and events. With our hybrid approach, you’ll experience flexibility and connection, collaboration, and learning with your team.