Sr. Staff Software Development Engineer

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 Senior Staff Software Development Engineer to join our team. This is a San Jose, CA role, reporting to the Director, Software Development Engineering in the Zero Trust Exchange department. We are hiring a Senior Staff Software Development Engineer to drive the evolution of our Client Connector Agent (CCA), a critical Windows client that provides secure connectivity, tunneling, and session management across enterprise and VDI environments. In this role, you will own core service-layer components including RPC, user session handling, and data pipelines to ensure CCA remains performant, scalable, resilient, and maintainable.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

• Design and implement features across the CCA service, user-mode UI, and supporting subsystems including the RPC server, session handler, data handler, and tunnel telemetry
• Diagnose and fix complex production issues such as service crashes, race conditions, lifetime bugs, and cross-process synchronization problems
• Improve reliability of long-running Windows service code including cleanup/shutdown paths and inter-process communication
• Work on VDI-specific flows including ZCC VDI SMB tunnel traffic accounting and session lifecycle management
• Review peers' code, raise the quality bar, and mentor other engineers on Windows systems programming

Who You Are (Success Profile)

• You thrive in ambiguity and see dynamic, complex environments as an opportunity to build meaningful solutions.
• You act like an owner, driving initiatives forward with passion, integrity, and a strong bias for action.
• You are a high-trust collaborator who embraces a challenge culture with clear, respectful, and constructive feedback.
• You are customer-obsessed, grounding engineering decisions in deep empathy to solve real-world problems.
• You champion simplicity by distilling complex technical concepts into clear, actionable plans.

What We’re Looking for (Minimum Qualifications)

• Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience leveraging, securing, or positioning AI-driven solutions to optimize outcomes within your functional domain
• 8+ years of production software engineering experience with strong C++ (C++14/17) expertise
• Solid grasp of Windows internals including services, user sessions, security tokens, IPC, and process/thread lifetime
• Experience debugging multithreaded C++ including races, deadlocks, iterator invalidation, and use-after-free
• Proficiency with diagnostic tools like WinDbg, ETW, Process Monitor, and crash dump analysis
• Track record of shipping and maintaining an enterprise desktop or endpoint product

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)

• Deep background in networking, VPN, ZTNA, or secure tunneling architectures
• Experience with RPC (MS-RPC or custom), named pipes, or COM
• Familiarity with VDI platforms (Citrix, VMware Horizon, AVD), installer/updater flows, or kernel-mode components

#LI-DY1 #LI-SanJose

Zscaler’s salary ranges are benchmarked and are determined by role and level. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations and could be higher or lower based on a multitude of factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

The base salary range listed for this full-time position excludes commission/ bonus/ equity (if applicable) + benefits.

Base Pay Range

$180,000—$225,000 USD

At Zscaler, we are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve and the customers we work with. We foster an inclusive environment that values all backgrounds and perspectives, emphasizing collaboration and belonging. Join us in our mission to make doing business seamless and secure.

Our Benefits program is one of the most important ways we support our employees. Zscaler proudly offers comprehensive and inclusive benefits to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families throughout their life stages, including:

• Various health plans
• Time off plans for vacation and sick time
• Parental leave options
• Retirement options
• Education reimbursement
• In-office perks, and more!

Learn more about Zscaler's hybrid working model and benefits  here.

By applying for this role, you adhere to applicable laws, regulations, and Zscaler policies, including those related to security and privacy standards and guidelines.

Zscaler is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all individuals. We strive to create a workplace where employees are treated with respect and have the chance to succeed. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy or related medical conditions), age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. See more information by clicking on the Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal link.

Pay Transparency

Zscaler complies with all applicable federal, state, and local pay transparency rules.

Zscaler is committed to providing reasonable support (called accommodations or adjustments) in our recruiting processes for candidates who are differently abled, have long term conditions, mental health conditions or sincerely held religious beliefs, or who are neurodivergent or require pregnancy-related support.