Senior Software Development Engineer

ZINC Zillow, Inc.; Massachusetts; Hybrid; USD 164,000 - 263,000; Full time

Job summary

Zillow Group is seeking a Senior Software Development Engineer for the Public Cloud Foundations team. You will design, build, and own backend services and APIs that abstract AWS capabilities into self-service products used by Zillow engineers.

You’ll own reliability, observability, and on-call duties, turning manual cloud work into automated platforms. Proficiency in Golang or Python and Terraform, plus modern CI/CD tooling, is required.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional software engineering in backend or platform services.
• Strong system design for distributed platforms with observability.
• Production experience in Golang or Python.
• Experience with AWS and core primitives (VPCs, subnets, IAM, compute, storage).
• Experience with Terraform and IaC, with safety checks and drift management.
• Knowledge of cloud security fundamentals and multi-account policy enforcement.
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure or backend services.
• Bias toward eliminating toil through automation.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and own backend services and APIs for self-service cloud capabilities.
• Turn recurring cloud work into productized offerings.
• Encode runbooks into safe, automated APIs and tooling.
• Treat Zillow teams as customers; shape interfaces and roadmaps.
• Own reliability with observability, SLOs, and self-healing capabilities.
• Be on call and drive follow-up work to prevent incidents.
• Leverage AI-assisted tooling to accelerate design and operations.
• Influence Platform Engineering on public cloud enablement.

Skills

6+ years exp

Distributed systems

APIs

Go/Python

AWS

CI/CD

Observability

On-call

Tools

Terraform

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Argo

Job description

About the team

The Public Cloud Foundations (PCF) team is part of Platform Engineering. We build the internal cloud platform that every Zillow engineer builds on: the self-service APIs, paved paths, and automation that turn the raw complexity of AWS into a small set of safe, reliable, well-documented product surfaces. We treat the platform as a product. Rather than handling cloud infrastructure as a queue of tickets and one-off requests, we design software that lets teams provision accounts, networking, and shared infrastructure themselves, safe by default. Our current work shows the direction: self-service VPC connectivity, a Terraform delivery platform, container base images delivered as a managed product, and provisioning and policy capabilities exposed as APIs instead of runbooks. We partner closely with Runtime Platform, Database Engineering, Middleware Engineering, Delivery Engineering, and Security to replace manual cloud work with software. PCF is where you help decide how Zillow uses the public cloud, and how a platform team turns operational surface area into engineered products.

About the role

As a Senior Software Development Engineer on Public Cloud Foundations, you will build the services and APIs that abstract away the complexity of the public cloud, and own them as products from design through operation. In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and own backend services and APIs that make cloud capabilities self-service: account provisioning, networking, IAM, and policy exposed as clean software interfaces rather than tickets or manual processes.
• Turn recurring cloud work into products.
• Take patterns that today depend on human judgment or hand-run runbooks and encode them into APIs, controls, and automation that are safe by default.
• Treat teams across Zillow as the customers of your platform: understand their use cases, shape the interfaces and paved paths they build on, and let their feedback and usage data drive your roadmap.
• Own the reliability of what you build. Design for observability, SLOs, and self-healing so the platform runs itself.
• Like any team that owns services in production, you'll be on call for what you ship, and you'll lead the follow-up work that removes whole classes of problems rather than patching individual incidents.
• Use modern AI-assisted and agentic tooling to accelerate design, implementation, and operations while keeping quality and safety high.
• Influence how Platform Engineering approaches public cloud enablement, bringing a product mindset to design discussions and roadmap decisions.
• You'll help take a set of foundational capabilities and turn them into a cohesive, self-service platform that Zillow engineers experience as a product, not a queue.

Remote and Compensation

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 $164,400.00 - $262,600.00 annually. This base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.

In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia the standard base pay range for this role is $156,200.00 - $249,400.00 annually. The base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.

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

You're a senior engineer who wants to build platforms, not just run them. You like taking messy, manual infrastructure work and turning it into clean software that other engineers build on, and you care about the developer experience of what you ship.

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating backend or platform services in production.
• Solid system design skills for distributed systems and API-based platforms, with a practical approach to simplicity, resiliency, and observability.
• Production experience in Golang or Python (preferred), or another modern language, with solid testing, code review, and debugging habits.
• Strong experience with at least one public cloud provider (preferably AWS) and its core primitives such as VPCs, subnets, routing, load balancers, security groups, IAM, compute, and storage, deep enough to abstract them behind clean interfaces.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform, structured as reusable, tested software rather than copy-paste configuration, including reviewing changes for safety and managing drift.
• Working knowledge of cloud security fundamentals, e.g., IAM, network segmentation, encryption, and policy enforcement in multi-account environments.
• Hands-on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Argo) for infrastructure and/or backend services.
• A bias toward eliminating toil in software: when you see repeated manual work, your instinct is to build the system that makes it unnecessary.

Nice to have

• Experience building or contributing to internal platforms or developer tooling (account vending, golden paths, self-service provisioning, or similar).
• Experience treating an internal platform as a product: defining interfaces, measuring adoption, and iterating on developer experience.
• Familiarity with service-to-service networking, service mesh, workload identity, or rate limiting in cloud environments.
• Strong Linux systems and networking fundamentals.

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

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 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

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.

At Zillow, flexibility isn’t a perk - it’s how we work. Cloud HQ is our distributed work model, built on trust, clear systems, and the belief that you can do great work from wherever you are. It’s not about where you work. It’s about moving forward - together.