Senior/Staff Software Engineer - ML/AI Applications

Zoox; Foster City (CA); On-site; USD 225,000 - 249,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

Health insurance

Stock options

Job summary

Zoox is seeking a Technical Lead for their internal agentic platform in Foster City, California. This role entails owning the integration of tools with external and internal clients and requires expertise in Python, Kubernetes, and HTTP integration. Candidates should have 7+ years of experience and a strong educational background in Computer Science. The position offers a competitive salary range of $225,000 - $249,000 per year alongside comprehensive benefits including stock options and health insurance.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, focusing on integration or backend roles.
• Strong Python skills, including production services and async I/O.
• Deep experience with REST/JSON-RPC, TLS, and troubleshooting on Kubernetes.

Responsibilities

• Lead integration strategy and execution across hosted services and shared libraries.
• Drive cross-functional delivery with various teams, ensuring sign-off where required.
• Debug complex failures using structured logs and metrics.

Skills

Integration

Platform

Python

Kubernetes

HTTP integration

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science or related field

Job description

As a Technical Lead on Zoox's internal agentic platform, you will own end-to-end integration of a tool-centric agent runtime with external and internal agent clients, line‑of‑business backends, scheduled and interactive agent workloads, and cloud operations (Kubernetes, observability, secrets management).

This role is platform and service integration for an agentic framework that mediates tools (discovery, invocation, policy, and telemetry). Success is measured by reliable tool call paths over HTTP, correct authentication and scoping, environment parity from dev through production, and clear ownership across partner engineering, security, and infrastructure teams.

In This Role, You Will

• Own and lead integration strategy and execution across hosted services, shared libraries, standardized tool protocols (e.g., JSON‑RPC over HTTP), REST APIs, and diverse callers (vendor agents, consoles, automation workers).
• Drive cross‑functional delivery with backend API teams, partner agent owners, security, SRE/platform, and program management, ensuring formal sign‑off where required.
• Debug and root‑cause complex failures using structured logs, distributed traces, metrics, and gateway/session‑token behavior, documenting durable mitigations and runbooks.
• Define and review all integration artifacts (contracts, allowlists, registry config, environment matrices, and interface assumptions) that upstream and downstream teams implement against.
• Contribute to release gating by ensuring container image promotion, configuration/secrets posture, smoke path execution for high‑traffic flows, and disciplined branching/tagging for production intent.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field with 7+ years of software engineering experience, strong in integration, platform, or backend roles.
• Strong Python (production services, async I/O, automated testing) and comfort in a large monorepo with CI‑driven delivery.
• Deep experience with HTTP integration (REST/JSON‑RPC, TLS, debugging under load) and shipping services on Kubernetes (deployments, health checks, troubleshooting).
• Auth integration experience: bearer tokens, JWT validation, OAuth2/OIDC or enterprise SSO concepts, and least‑privilege scoping.

Bonus Qualifications

• Exposure to Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar agent tool‑calling and orchestration models used in industry or internal platforms.
• Observability‑led integration habits: metrics, traces, structured logging, and basic SLO or dashboard thinking for integration health.
• Background in security‑sensitive integrations (data minimization, external partner access, review cycles with security or compliance).

Base Salary Range

$225,000 - $249,000 a year

There are three major components to compensation for this position: salary, Amazon Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), and Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights. A sign‑on bonus may be offered as part of the compensation package. The listed range applies only to the base salary. Compensation will vary based on geographic location and level. Leveling, as well as positioning within a level, is determined by a range of factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's relevant years of experience, domain knowledge, and interview performance. The salary range listed in this posting is representative of the range of levels Zoox is considering for this position.

Benefits

Zoox also offers a comprehensive package of benefits, including paid time off (e.g. sick leave, vacation, bereavement), unpaid time off, Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights, Amazon RSUs, health insurance, long‑term care insurance, long‑term and short‑term disability insurance, and life insurance.