Senior Applied AI Engineer - Production-Grade AI Solutions

Zscaler, Inc.; San Jose, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Time off plans

Parental leave options

Retirement options

In-office perks

Job summary

Zscaler, Inc. seeks a Staff Applied AI Engineer to join in San Jose, CA or remote anywhere in the US. You will partner with business leaders to translate ambiguous ideas into secure, production-grade AI solutions and guide roadmaps with a product-ownership mindset.

You will design scalable AI systems, enable retrieval-augmented workflows, and ensure governance with least-privilege access and cost attribution. Collaboration with stakeholders is essential for success.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience with AI/ML
• Hands-on experience with modern AI architectures including retrieval, agentic orchestration, and MCP integration
• Experience securing AI systems with least-privilege controls and defending against prompt injection

Responsibilities

• Partner with business leaders from discovery through delivery to map workflows and shape roadmaps
• Design and ship secure, production-grade AI solutions across retrieval-augmented generation and data mining
• Establish monitoring, access controls, and ROI/cost attribution for AI deployments
• Set engineering standards by expanding reusable building blocks and playbooks while mentoring teammates

Skills

Python

AI/ML

Security

Cloud platforms

Stakeholder collaboration

Production deployment

Tools

APIs

Relational databases

Vector databases

LLM frameworks

Job description

Zscaler, Inc. seeks a Staff Applied AI Engineer to join in San Jose, CA or remote anywhere in the US. You will partner with business leaders to translate ambiguous ideas into secure, production-grade AI solutions and guide roadmaps with a product-ownership mindset.

You will design scalable AI systems, enable retrieval-augmented workflows, and ensure governance with least-privilege access and cost attribution. Collaboration with stakeholders is essential for success.