Lead Software Engineer – Real-Time Events

Zeta Global; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

Excellent medical, dental, and vision

Employee Equity

Discounts, Wellness, Pet Insurance

Job summary

Zeta Global is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to join Real-Time Events (RTE). This is a highly hands-on IC role to design, build, and operate the ZMP real-time events pipeline handling high-volume data for marketing platform products.

Key duties include technical leadership, architecture ownership, and cross-team collaboration to meet SLAs. The role requires strong Python/Scala/Java skills and extensive experience with Kafka and AWS-based data pipelines.

Qualifications

• 8–10 years in software engineering with lead/staff exposure to event, streaming, or data-infrastructure systems.
• Proficient in event streaming (Kafka or equivalent), Python services/APIs (FastAPI), and pipeline processing (Spark/EMR).
• Experience designing and operating systems on AWS (S3, SQS/SNS, Lambda, RDS).
• Full lifecycle software development, from design to production, monitoring and on-call.
• Fluency in Python or substantial experience with Scala/Java.
• Experience with data stores in event pipelines (Postgres/MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB).
• Experience with orchestrators such as Apache Airflow.
• Strong communication to explain designs and trade-offs to partners.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: design, implement, and launch production-ready event-pipeline features; own pipeline architecture.
• Innovation: evaluate new technologies for cost, latency, or operational gains and push to production.
• Engineering Collaboration: participate in architecture discussions and define stable interfaces with downstream consumers.
• Team Mentorship: mentor through code/design reviews and ensure production-worthy patterns.
• Product Collaboration: work with Product, Data, and ZMP teams to meet SLAs (latency, throughput, correctness).
• Infrastructure & Reliability: improve alerting, own on-call gaps, drive post-incident fixes and observability.

Skills

Kafka

Python

FastAPI

Spark/EMR

AWS

Scala

Java

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Redis

DynamoDB

Airflow

S3/SQS/SNS

Lambda

RDS

Tools

Kafka

FastAPI

Spark/EMR

Airflow

AWS

Job description

Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI-Powered Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform – powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world. To learn more, go towww.zetaglobal.com.

Role Overview

Zeta Global is looking for a Lead Software Engineer to join Real-Time Events (RTE). This is a highly hands-on IC role. You will design, build, and operate the ZMP real-time events pipeline: ingesting, processing, and delivering high-volume event data that powers Zeta Marketing Platform products.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership:Design, implement, and launch event-pipeline features in production. Own architecture for the parts of the pipeline you lead.
• Thought Leadership & Innovation:Evaluate existing or emerging technologies where they offer a clear cost, latency, or operational advantage, and land those choices in production.
• Engineering Collaboration:Engage in architectural discussions, take ownership of key pipeline projects, and define stable contracts with downstream consumers.
• Team Mentorship:Mentor through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing. Help teammates ship via clear interfaces, solid tests, and production-ready patterns.
• Product Collaboration:Partner with Product, Data, and ZMP consumer teams to turn SLAs (latency, throughput, correctness) into working systems.
• Infrastructure & Reliability:Instrument services, improve alerting, and own on-call gaps yourself. Drive post-incident fixes (root cause, code, runbooks, dashboards) and keep the pipeline predictable under load.

Desired Qualifications and Expertise

• Extensive Experience:Minimum of 8–10 years in software engineering, including Lead/Staff-level work on event, streaming, or data-infrastructure systems.
• Technical Proficiency:Production experience with event streaming (Kafka or equivalent), Python services and APIs (e.g. FastAPI), and pipeline processing (Spark/EMR or equivalent) where needed.
• Cloud Expertise:Proficient in designing, deploying, and operating systems on AWS (S3, SQS/SNS, Lambda, RDS, and similar).
• Full Lifecycle Exposure:Experience with the complete software development lifecycle, from design through production, monitoring, and on-call.
• Programming Skills:Fluency in Python or substantial experience in Scala and Java.
• Database Proficiency:Skilled with data stores used around event pipelines (e.g. Postgres/MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB or similar).
• Scheduler Experience:Experience with orchestrators such as Apache Airflow.
• Operational Mindset:Track record owning high-throughput pipelines in production: incidents, performance and cost, observability, data quality, and SLOs.
• Communication Skills:Excellent interpersonal and communication abilities; can explain pipeline design and trade-offs to partners who consume ZMP event data.

BENEFITS & PERKS

• Unlimited PTO
• Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Employee Equity
• Employee Discounts, Virtual Wellness Classes, and Pet Insurance and more!!

SALARY RANGE

The salary range for this role is $200,000 - $210,000, depending on location and experience.

PEOPLE & CULTURE AT ZETA

Zeta considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Zeta discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

We’re committed to building a workplace culture of trust and belonging, so everyone feels invited to bring their whole selves to work. We provide a forum for employees to celebrate, support and advocate for one another. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion here:https://zetaglobal.com/blog/a-look-into-zetas-ergs/

ZETA IN THE NEWS!

https://zetaglobal.com/press/?cat=press-releases