Staff Software Engineer

Job Description

Staff Software Engineer (Backend or Fullstack) – Custom Data

Location: This role follows a hybrid work model, requiring candidates to be based in Madison, San Francisco, or Austin.

Join Zendesk and Shape the Future of Customer Experience

Zendesk’s flagship product, Zendesk Support, is built to help businesses create seamless customer experiences with powerful, yet intuitive, customization capabilities. Our team owns the data customization platform, enabling large enterprise customers to bring critical business data into Zendesk and model their unique workflows and processes. By providing the foundation for custom data modeling, we empower businesses to extend Zendesk’s capabilities to meet their exact operational needs.

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer (backend or fullstack) to be a technical leader within this team. This role is perfect for engineers who are passionate about scalable architectures, modern web technologies, and data-driven customization, and who want to work on high-impact engineering initiatives at an enterprise scale.

As a Staff Engineer, you will set the technical direction, work across teams to solve complex challenges, mentor engineers, and lead the design and development of solutions that enhance Zendesk’s data customization capabilities. If you thrive on solving highly technical, customer-facing problems and driving innovation, we’d love to hear from you.

What You’ll Do

Lead Engineering Excellence & Innovation

• Independently lead the system design, development, testing, and deployment of high-quality, efficient software solutions.

• Work across multiple teams and disciplines to architect reliable, secure, performant, extensible, and scalable solutions for enterprise customers.

• Make high-impact technical decisions and effectively communicate rationale to engineering teams and stakeholders.

• Ensure code quality, maintainability, and scalability, adhering to best practices and industry standards.

• Contribute to the evolution of Zendesk’s architecture, helping to modernize our custom data platform while improving extensibility and performance.

Collaborate & Deliver High-Impact Solutions

• Work closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineering Leaders to define and execute on technical strategy.

• Proactively identify and mitigate potential issues in development, testing, or delivery stages.

• Participate in application improvement discussions, project initiatives, and feature design to drive continuous enhancements.

• Build reusable components and code that improve development efficiency and consistency.

• Participate in code reviews, providing constructive feedback to maintain high engineering standards.

• Own end-to-end delivery, ensuring features are shipped with high quality, reliability, and performance.

Mentor, Guide, and Strengthen the Team

• Mentor, pair with, and train team members to foster continuous learning and growth.

• Promote a learning culture within the team, ensuring equal opportunities for skill development.

• Conduct research and introduce best practices to enhance team efficiency and innovation.

• Participate in on-call rotations after an initial training period, ensuring system reliability and uptime.

• Lead common agile development ceremonies, contributing to process improvements.

• Show strategic forward-thinking and provide technical leadership to drive long-term success.

What We’re Looking For

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience designing, developing, testing, and shipping stable and reliable software solutions in production environments.

• 6+ years of experience working with Ruby on Rails and relational databases such as MySQL/Aurora.

• Strong knowledge in JavaScript and TypeScript, as well as frameworks like React and Redux.

• Experience with testing libraries such as Cypress, Jest, and React Testing Library.

• Deep experience working with GraphQL and REST APIs, designing and implementing scalable data layers.

• Proven ability to architect, design, and deliver large-scale, enterprise-grade software solutions.<