[Remote] Staff Software Engineer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Zeta Global is an AI-Powered Marketing Cloud company that utilizes advanced artificial intelligence to enhance marketing efficiency. The Staff Software Engineer role involves tackling complex engineering challenges, leading architectural decisions, and contributing hands-on to high-priority initiatives across multiple platforms.ResponsibilitiesIdentify systemic engineering challenges across our platforms and drive their resolution — shaping the technical backlog and near-term architecturePropose and validate technical approaches for problems involving scale, performance, security, or cross-team dependenciesLead architectural decisions for complex, ambiguous, or high-risk initiativesIncorporate modern industry patterns — including AI/ML tooling — into our technical strategy where it genuinely moves the needleWrite code, review PRs, debug production issues, and optimize system performance — this is not a whiteboard-only roleDive deep into our AWS infrastructure, Kubernetes workloads, and JVM-based services to find and fix what's actually wrongParticipate in our on-call rotation as a second-level escalation point for complex engineering incidentsStep in during large incidents to help teams triage, coordinate, and resolve — and follow through with post-incident reviews that drive lasting fixesChampion operational excellence across our engineering teams: observability, reliability, deployment practices, and the operational habits that keep systems healthy at scalePartner with engineering teams as a technical point of contact on complex projects — ensuring good architectural decisions get documented and don't have to be re-litigatedWork directly with Engineering Managers to align technical work with team and product prioritiesMentor engineers across our teams, raising the technical floor through reviews, pairing, and direct feedbackStay close to the customer. Understand how Sailthru's platform affects the people using it, bring that context into technical decisions, and push back when engineering choices create friction for customersPartner closely with the product team — contribute to shaping what gets built, not just how. The best technical decisions happen when engineering and product are thinking together from the startSkillsDeep, battle-tested expertise in AWS and cloud-native architecture — you know how to build reliable, scalable systems at real traffic volumesStrong JVM fundamentals, primarily Java and Kotlin, with the range to work across languages as the problem demandsHands-on Kubernetes experience — deploying, operating, and troubleshooting workloads in productionExperience designing and operating distributed systems — fault tolerance, consistency tradeoffs, service coordination, and failure modes at scaleComfort working with large databases at scale — query optimization, schema design, operational concerns, and the tradeoffs between data storage approachesPractical experience with AI/ML engineering — whether integrating LLM capabilities, building pipelines, or evaluating where AI actually helps vs. adds complexityA track record of delivering large, complex initiatives in ambiguous environments — scoping, driving alignment, and shippingStrong debugging instincts and a bias toward root-cause analysis over symptomatic fixesThe judgment to know when to push for the right solution and when pragmatism winsFluency 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 securityComfort operating without a playbook — you've solved novel problems before and know how to navigate uncertaintyComfort working in and around legacy codebases — you can read unfamiliar code, understand systems that predate you, and make meaningful improvements without needing a rewriteThe ability to quickly map an existing architecture — identify bottlenecks, constraints, and opportunities — and turn that understanding into concrete, actionable proposals that increase team velocityYou 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 pathBias 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 careExperience with PHP or Python is a plusFamiliarity with high-volume messaging infrastructure or email/marketing tech is welcome but not requiredKnowledge of the Databricks platform and data engineering practices (pipelines, lakehouses, batch and streaming processing) is a bonusBenefitsUnlimited PTOExcellent medical, dental, and vision coverageEmployee Equity and Stock Purchase PlanEmployee Discounts, Virtual WellnessClasses, andPet InsuranceAndmore!!Company OverviewZeta offers technology and marketing services to help brands acquire, engage, and retain customers. It was founded in 2007, and is headquartered in New York, New York, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is http://www.zetaglobal.com.Company H1B SponsorshipZeta Global has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 8 in 2026, 20 in 2025, 17 in 2024, 11 in 2023, 6 in 2022, 8 in 2021, 16 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.