Principal Software Engineer

About the team

The Service Enablement Team (SET) is a hands-on engineering group at Zillow focused on operationalizing emerging technologies and AI capabilities. We work at the intersection of Developer Experience, Core Technology, and product teams to deliver secure, scalable, and self-service infrastructure. Our mission is to help developers—and eventually non-technical teams—adopt new tools with confidence, transforming innovation into measurable value across Zillow.

About the role

As a Principal Software Development Engineer on SET, you will play a pivotal role in designing, developing, and scaling agentic systems, self-service developer tooling, and intelligent orchestration patterns. You will partner with engineers, technical program managers, and platform leaders to shape the adoption of foundational platforms like our Model Context Protocol (MCP), automation frameworks, and enablement patterns for AI/LLM-powered systems. Your work will set technical direction for solutions that scale across teams, adapt to new technologies, and maintain security and reliability from day one.

As a Principal Software Engineer, You Will Get To:

• Design and implement self-service developer tools, including onboarding flows and orchestration frameworks for AI and internal platform usage

• Build enablement solutions such as starter guides, reusable security-aware integrations, and shared orchestration patterns for agentic workflows

• Identify and address areas where teams are duplicating AI or agentic patterns, providing shared solutions to accelerate adoption

• Collaborate with Core Technology and Developer Experience teams to integrate platform capabilities into scalable, ready-to-use offerings

• Lead cross-team technical initiatives, set architecture for complex workflows, and advise during ambiguous problem-solving

• Partner with security and product teams to shape adoption strategies and unify the developer experience

• Mentor engineers, champion engineering quality, and support SET’s mission to turn innovation into practical solutions

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, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $186,700.00 - $298,300.00 Annually. This base pay range is specific to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington DC 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.

Who you are

• 10+ years of experience building scalable backend systems, developer tooling, or infrastructure platforms

• Expertise in system design, distributed computing, and platform architecture

• Strong knowledge of AWS infrastructure, Kubernetes, and Infrastructure-as-Code

• Experience with orchestration platforms (e.g., n8n, Airflow) and event-driven architectures

• Familiarity with integrating or operationalizing AI/LLM workflows and observability in hybrid AI + human-in-the-loop systems

• Proven ability to lead large-scale, cross-team initiatives in ambiguous or emerging technical spaces

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Experience with platform-as-a-product thinking, prioritizing enablement and adoption

• Comfortable navigating fast-changing landscapes and learning new technologies

• Here at Zillow, we value the experience and perspective of candidates with non-traditional backgrounds. We encourage you to apply if you have transferable skills or related experiences.

Get to know us

Zillow is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people.

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