Principal Software Development Engineer - Rust

Zscaler accelerates digital transformation so customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure.

The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform protects thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our team in the Platform Convergence department. This is a hybrid role, reporting to the Sr. Director of Software Engineering.

Role Expectations

• Design and build a low-latency, high-throughput data forwarding plane using Rust and async/await models for efficient service-oriented infrastructure.
• Develop distributed, scalable systems with a focus on concurrency, fault tolerance, and messaging.
• Implement and maintain gRPC-based APIs and services to integrate forwarding plane capabilities with control and orchestration layers.
• Optimize system performance through deep profiling across kernel-space and user-space.
• Drive technical excellence through code reviews, architectural discussions, documentation, and mentoring junior engineers.

Success Profile

• Thrive in ambiguity and dynamic environments.
• Act like an owner with a bias for action and integrity.
• Be a problem-solver, focusing on finding solutions.
• Collaborate with high trust, being ambitious for the team.
• Have a growth mindset, seeking feedback for personal development.

Minimum Qualifications

• Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies.
• 14+ years of software development experience with expertise in systems programming and Rust.
• Extensive experience with async frameworks like Tokio or async-std.
• Proven track record of building resilient, observable, and horizontally scalable distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of Linux fundamentals, networking, container-based environments, CI/CD, and kernel-user space interaction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-assisted developer tools, automated profiling, or AI acceleration libraries.
• Professional experience with systems languages like C/C++ or Go in performance-critical environments and kernel-space technologies.
• Hands-on experience with gRPC, Protobufs, and L2–L4 networking protocols.

Benefits

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