Zeta Global - Staff Software Engineer

• Deep, battle-tested expertise in AWS and cloud-native architecture — you know how to build reliable, scalable systems at real traffic volumes. • Strong JVM fundamentals, primarily Java and Kotlin, with the range to work across languages as the problem demands. • Hands-on Kubernetes experience — deploying, operating, and troubleshooting workloads in production. • Experience designing and operating distributed systems — fault tolerance, consistency tradeoffs, service coordination, and failure modes at scale. • Comfort working with large databases at scale — query optimization, schema design, operational concerns, and the tradeoffs between data storage approaches. • Practical experience with AI/ML engineering — whether integrating LLM capabilities, building pipelines, or evaluating where AI actually helps vs. adds complexity. • A track record of delivering large, complex initiatives in ambiguous environments — scoping, driving alignment, and shipping. • Strong debugging instincts and a bias toward root-cause analysis over symptomatic fixes. • The judgment to know when to push for the right solution and when pragmatism wins. • Fluency with AI-driven development tools — Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, or similar — is a firm requirement. We use these tools daily and expect staff engineers to be effective with them and to model best practices around prompt discipline, output validation, and security. • Comfort operating without a playbook — you've solved novel problems before and know how to navigate uncertainty. • Comfort working in and around legacy codebases — you can read unfamiliar code, understand systems that predate you, and make meaningful improvements without needing a rewrite. • The ability to quickly map an existing architecture — identify bottlenecks, constraints, and opportunities — and turn that understanding into concrete, actionable proposals that increase team velocity. • You think big. You're not constrained by how things are done today — you can envision meaningfully better outcomes and work backwards from them to find a path. • Bias for action. You'd rather move with imperfect information and course-correct than wait for certainty that never comes. You know the difference between a reversible decision and one that warrants more care. • Experience with PHP or Python is a plus. Familiarity with high-volume messaging infrastructure or email/marketing tech is welcome but not required. Knowledge of the Databricks platform and data engineering practices (pipelines, lakehouses, batch and streaming processing) is a bonus. • Working Here • This role sits within Zeta Actions — the Zeta Global business unit encompassing Sailthru, LiveIntent, and WhatCounts. We're remote-first with engineers across the US. The scale of what these platforms do — high-volume delivery, real-time identity resolution, personalization at billions of touchpoints — means the problems are genuinely hard. If that's what energizes you, we'd like to hear from you.