Principal Full Stack Software Development Engineer

Zillow Group Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 182,000 - 306,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity awards

Remote work

Job summary

Zillow Group is seeking a Principal Software Engineer on the Transaction AI team. You will collaborate with scientists and engineers to design AI-enabled backend systems, lead small groups on POCs, and shape engineering culture with strong code reviews and guidelines.

You will mentor engineers, align engineering with business strategy, and help educate science leadership on backend architectures. Remote role with equity eligibility.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of software design patterns and principles.
• Experience setting architecture vision and strategy for an organization.
• Experience developing highly available services at Internet scale.
• Comfortable contributing across the stack including ETL, backend and frontend.
• Fluent in Python, Typescript, and JavaScript.
• Experience mentoring engineers and guiding technical leaders.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with scientists, engineering, design and research to scope and prototype AI systems.
• Lead small working groups to build POCs and validate agentic AI experiences.
• Set software development culture with code reviews and engineering guidelines.
• Partner with senior product leadership to align engineering with business strategy.
• Provide leadership to navigate complex technical challenges and mentor teammates.
• Educate science leadership about backend systems and connect to broader AI strategy.
• Support hiring, onboarding and growth of team members.

Skills

Python

Typescript

JavaScript

ETL

Backend services

Frontend development

Architecture vision

Leadership

Mentoring engineers

Job description

About the team

At Zillow our mission is to give people the power to unlock life’s next chapter. Zillow’s AI Org plays an important part in delivering unique AI-powered experiences for the hundreds of millions of customers that visit Zillow websites each month. As a Principal Software Engineer on the Transaction AI team, you’ll be partnering with a highly skilled group of applied scientists, software developers, and machine learning engineers working together toward a bold and audacious goal. The Transaction AI team at Zillow is focused on bringing agentic AI powered products and services to real estate agents, loan officers, and the buyers they are helping have a smoother and more delightful experience. We co‑build end‑to‑end applications and AI‑driven services that help agents and loan officers use their time more efficiently, giving them more insight into how to help each buyer they are interacting with. We also develop and own internal tooling such as Agentic Evaluation harnesses and tools that our partner teams across the company working to bring Agentic AI products to market move faster.

Learn more about what we are doing at https://www.zillow.com/engineering and https://www.zillow.com/ai

About the role

We are seeking a collaborative, customer‑focused, and product‑minded engineer with deep experience with data infrastructure and backend development. The ideal candidate must be passionate about building tools and experiences that showcase the capabilities of machine learning and AI and helping the team leverage their engineering chops to solve customer problems. You will work closely with senior leaders and principal engineers across the AI organization to help guide our architecture and technical strategy around agentic AI and will be a critical technical voice to the Transaction AI leadership team.

You Will Collaborate closely with applied scientists, engineering, design, and research to understand, scope, design, prototype, implement, and iterate on internal and external facing systems supporting and implementing next‑generation AI applications.
Lead small working groups to build POCs and to prove out new agentic customer experiences and try out new infrastructure.
Set the tone of software development culture in Transaction AI with an emphasis on finding new and effective ways to leverage AI tools to increase the quality and scale of the engineering outputs.
Partner with Senior Product Leadership to align engineering capability to business strategy.
Set the standard for high‑quality work through code reviews, mentoring, and the development of guidelines.
Provide leadership that helps navigate the team through complicated technical challenges.
Educate the science leadership of Transaction AI about the back‑end systems being built or that you are proposing we build or adopt and connect them back to our teams core strategy and the wider AI org agentic strategy.
Support the growth and development of individuals and the team through interviewing, onboarding, and mentorship.

This role has been categorized as a Remote position. “Remote” employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions. In California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $191,300.00 - $305,700.00 annually. In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia the standard base pay range for this role is $181,800.00 - $290,400.00 annually. In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Employees in this role will not be paid below the salary threshold for exempt employees in the state where they reside.

Who you are

• 8+ years of experience building and shipping production‑grade software or services
• Strong understanding of software design patterns and principles
• An understanding of the Machine Learning product development cycle and excitement to learn more about it
• You are comfortable contributing across the stack, including ETL, backend services, and product front‑end.
• You are fluent in languages such as Python, Typescript, and Javascript.
• Strong use of and familiarity with AI coding tools and effective patterns of deploying AI agents to multiply your impact.
• Are excited and comfortable communicating highly technical ideas with leaders and principles across technical disciplines - not just with other engineers.
• Experience setting architecture vision and strategy for an organization
• Experience in developing highly available services at Internet scale
• Ability to collaborate across teams and leaders, indirectly influence others in a positive way, and navigate difficult conversations and decisions
• Have experience and passion for mentoring and guiding engineers, helping develop and grow technical leaders

Nice to have

• Experience developing applications that rely on generative AI or large language models and related technologies (knowledge retrieval solutions, for example).
• Experience collaborating with science, engineering, design, research and product partners in a team with a startup culture.

Get to know us

At Zillow, we’re reimagining how people move—through the real estate market and through their careers. As the most‑visited real estate platform in the U.S., we help people navigate buying, selling, financing and renting with greater ease and confidence. Whether you're working in tech, sales, operations, or design, you’ll be part of a company reshaping an industry and helping more people make home a reality. How we work is a key part of that transformation. Through Cloud HQ, our strategic approach to distributed work, most employees have the flexibility to work from wherever they’re most productive—enabling us to move fast, stay connected and deliver on our people promise.

Zillow is honored to be recognized among the best workplaces in the U.S. Zillow was named one of FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® in 2026, and included on TIME’s America’s Best Companies 2026 list, reflecting our commitment to creating an innovative, inclusive, and engaging culture where employees are empowered to grow. No matter where you sit in the organization, your work will help drive innovation, support our customers, and move the industry—and your career—forward, together.

Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact your recruiter directly. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable state and local law.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.