Staff Software Engineer - Fullstack (AI Apps)
ZendeskJob Description
Who you will be working with
You’ll be part of the team that built our generative AI coding assistant (App Builder) for creating Zendesk Apps. App Builder empowers non-technical Zendesk admins to build custom apps that extend the Zendesk Platform functionality, through conversations. Born from a hackathon in 2024 and shipped to production in 6 months, the product has assisted customers in generating over 7000 apps and averages 50 conversations per app.
You’ll be working with a high performing team that moves quickly to deliver features customers love, collaborating closely with Product and Design. We value engineers with a growth mindset, a customer-first outlook, a knack for designing scalable systems and demonstrable leadership qualities.
What you'll be doing
Own the architectural decisions for end‑to‑end generative AI systems: feature pipelines, inference services (App Builder backend), observability, and scalable delivery.
Define and standardise generative AI delivery patterns (CI/CD, canary/blue‑green, rollbacks, A/B/back‑testing) and agent orchestration.
Design and build scalable App Builder's inference systems that meet reliability, performance, and cost targets through sound architectural decisions.
Architect and scale App Builder's inference services to deliver high-quality LLM outputs with optimal latency and cost efficiency.
Champion automation and developer experience improvements in testing, deployments, tooling, and operational runbooks to reduce manual toil.
Mentor and guide engineers across the stack, fostering a culture of technical excellence, code quality, and continuous improvement.
Partner with Product and Design to deliver features that solve real customer problems, ensuring usability, performance, and maintainability.
What you bring to the role
8+ years of experience building and scaling modern, distributed applications across both backend and frontend stacks.
Strong proficiency with JavaScript/TypeScript and React (or comparable frameworks); proven track record designing clean, maintainable frontend architectures.
Proven experience delivering production grade generative AI systems that are high-performance, resilient, scalable, and cost‑optimized.
Experience mentoring senior and junior engineers alike, driving technical initiatives, and leading by example.
A pragmatic product mindset to deliver value to users with empathy, initiative, and accountability.
Excellent communication skills and a collaborative, low-ego approach to problem solving.
Our Tech Stack
Our code is written primarily in JavaScript / TypeScript.
Our frontends use frameworks including React, Redux, React Testing Library, Cypress.
Our servers live in AWS.
Our applications/services are deployed via Spinnaker to Kubernetes.
Our data is stored in Aurora/MySQL, Redis and S3.
Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.
The intelligent heart of customer experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.