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

Zendesk; Pune District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk in Pune is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to act as the technical leader for the team. You will define architecture, roadmap, and execution strategy, leading the development of a feature-rich system for admins and internal teams.

The role requires 9+ years in full‑stack engineering, strong Java/JS/Rails experience, and a bias for delivering robust, scalable software. You’ll collaborate with global teams, own features end‑to‑end, and drive improvements in observability and performance.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of experience in full‑stack software engineering for enterprise SaaS or large web apps.
• Strong expertise in Java, Ruby on Rails, GoLang, Scala, Typescript, NodeJs or similar OO languages.
• 9+ years with JavaScript/TypeScript and frameworks like React/Redux.
• Proficient with MySQL/Redis and performance optimization in high-traffic environments.
• Excellent verbal/written English communication and collaboration across global teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architecture, execution strategy, and long‑term roadmap.
• Lead development of a feature‑rich system for Zendesk admins and internal teams.
• Break complex features into granular work items and guide delivery.
• Own features end‑to‑end, design solutions with Tech Leaders, review code.
• Improve observability, performance, reliability, and security of services.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across teams for 1–2 year horizon.
• Coordinate with designers and product managers to shape the product roadmap.
• Triage customer issues with Product Managers and provide production support.

Skills

9+ years experience

Full-stack

Java

Ruby on Rails

GoLang

Scala

Typescript

NodeJs

React

Redux

MySQL

Redis

Kafka

GraphQL

Kubernetes

Docker

System design

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Ruby on Rails

MySQL

Redis

Go

Java

Kubernetes

Docker

Kafka

GraphQL

AWS

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

We’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.

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.

What’s it like to work here?

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 believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, 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.

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 based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here. Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. 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.

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.

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