Staff Software Engineer Fullstack (AI Apps)

Job Description

Who you will be working with

Youll 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.

Youll 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 youll be doing

• Own the architectural decisions for endtoend generative AI systems: feature pipelines inference services (App Builder backend) observability and scalable delivery.

• Define and standardise generative AI delivery patterns (CI/CD canary/bluegreen rollbacks A/B/backtesting) and agent orchestration.

• Design and build scalable App Builders inference systems that meet reliability performance and cost targets through sound architectural decisions.

• Architect and scale App Builders 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 costoptimized.

• 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 were 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 with your specific accommodation request.