Sr. Staff Software Engineer (UI/UX)

Worky; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Zscaler in San Jose is seeking a Sr. Staff Software Engineer (Full-Stack) to lead the development of AI security products, spanning UI in React and backend microservices. This hybrid role reports to the Director, Software Engineering, AI Security within the AI Guard department.

You will own end-to-end features, shape technical direction with backend, UX, and product teams, and mentor engineers while ensuring reliability, scalability, and a delightful customer experience on AWS and Kubernetes.

Qualifications

• 6+ years building enterprise-grade solutions with AI tooling awareness.
• Experience designing and consuming REST APIs in microservices.
• HTML5, CSS3 and Tailwind CSS development experience.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and core AWS services.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and delivery of full-stack features across UI and backend.
• Establish patterns for reusable UI components and platform-wide standards.
• Collaborate with backend engineers, UX, and product managers on end-to-end quality.
• Own logging, observability, and platform-level infra concerns.
• Mentor engineers and drive engineering standards.

Skills

AI tooling

REST APIs

UI/Frontend

Kubernetes

AWS

Problem solving

Ownership

Ambiguity handling

Tools

React

Spring Boot

Tailwind CSS

HTML5

CSS3

Kafka

REST APIs

AWS

Kubernetes

Job description

Sr. Staff Software Engineer (Full-Stack)

San Jose, California, USA

About Zscaler

Zscaler accelerates digital transformation to ensure our customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure. As an AI-forward enterprise, we are constantly pushing the envelope, leveraging the world’s largest security data lake to power our cloud-native Zero Trust Exchange platform. This innovation protects our customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location.

Here, impact in your role matters more than title and trust is built on results. We say, impact over activity. We seek innovators who actively use AI to amplify their impact and who thrive in an environment where we leverage intelligent systems to stay ahead of evolving threats. We believe in transparency and value constructive, honest debate - we're focused on getting to the best ideas, faster. We build high-performing teams that can make an impact quickly and with high quality. To do this, we are building a culture of execution centered on customer obsession, collaboration, ownership, and accountability.

We value high-impact, high-accountability with a sense of urgency where you’re enabled to do your best work and embrace your potential. If you’re driven by purpose, thrive on solving complex challenges, and want to be part of the team that’s helping to secure the AI age, we invite you to bring your talents to Zscaler and help shape the future of cybersecurity.

Role

We are looking for a Sr. Staff Software Engineer (Full-Stack) to join our team. This is a Hybrid (San Jose, CA) role, reporting to the Director, Software Engineering, AI Security in the AI Guard department. We are seeking a talented, high-energy team player to help develop cutting-edge AI security products. This is a greenfield opportunity to define and build a new class of market-defining products. As a member of this growing team, you will share responsibility for ensuring the Zscaler service remains reliable, scales efficiently, and offers a delightful experience to our customers.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

• Lead the design and delivery of full-stack features spanning React-based UI, Spring Boot microservices, REST APIs, event-driven Kafka services, and cloud-native infrastructure on AWS and Kubernetes
• Architect flexible, reusable UI components and establish patterns that scale across the platform
• Set technical direction in collaboration with backend engineers, UX designers, and product managers to ensure end-to-end solution quality and user experience
• Own logging, observability, and infrastructure concerns at a platform level, not just feature level
• Mentor engineers, conduct code reviews, and drive engineering standards across the team

Who You Are (Success Profile)

• You thrive in ambiguity and are comfortable building the path as you walk it, viewing dynamic environments as raw material to construct something meaningful.
• You act like an owner with a strong bias for action, navigating seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands‑on execution.
• You are an energized problem‑solver who seeks out complex technical challenges to deliver high‑impact solutions.
• You operate with urgency and a relentless focus on execution, delivering high‑quality, impactful results quickly for the team and customer.
• You are driven by innovation, deeply curious about how technology works, and constantly seeking scalable, secure ways to accelerate transformation.

What We’re Looking for (Minimum Qualifications)

• Demonstrated curiosity and active exploration of AI tools, with a proven history of integrating new technologies to enhance daily workflows and augment problem-solving
• 6+ years building enterprise-grade solutions, with a strong emphasis on spec-driven development workflows using AI coding assistants like Claude or Gemini
• Experience designing and consuming REST APIs in a microservices architecture, alongside experience with event-streaming platforms like Kafka
• Experience with HTML5, CSS3, and modern CSS frameworks like Tailwind CSS
• Familiarity with containerized deployments on Kubernetes and core AWS services

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)