Director, Software Development Engineering

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 worlds 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 debatewere 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 youre enabled to do your best work and embrace your potential. If youre driven by purpose thrive on solving complex challenges and want to be part of the team thats 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 Director Software Engineering to join our team. This is a hybrid role based out of our San Jose HQ (minimum 3 days a week on Tue Wed Thu) reporting to the VP Engineering for the Zero Trust Branch (Zero Trust Exchange) department.

In this role the Director of Software Engineering will lead the gateway/datapath engineering organization owning the architecture delivery and operational excellence of highperformance highly reliable traffic processing systems. This role drives the technical strategy and execution for critical dataplane capabilities ensuring scalable secure and observable performance that directly impacts customer experience and platform stability.

What youll do (Role Expectations)

• Set technical direction and architecture for the gateway/datapath driving scalable high-performance designs while balancing across considerations such as latency throughput resiliency and cost
• Lead and grow the engineering organization hiring and developing a strong high performing team and building a culture of accountability execution and continuous improvement
• Drive delivery of critical dataplane capabilities translating business priorities into clear roadmaps milestones and measurable outcomes and consistently shipping high-quality releases
• Own operational excellence for production systems improving reliability observability incident response and SLO/SLI discipline to meet availability and performance targets
• Partner cross-functionally with Product QA Security SRE and peer engineering teams to align priorities manage dependencies and ensure end-to-end customer impact

Who You Are (Success Profile)

• You thrive in ambiguity. Youre comfortable building the path as you walk it. You thrive in a dynamic environment seeing ambiguity not as a hindrance but as the raw material to build something meaningful.
• You act like an owner. Your passion for the mission fuels your bias for action. You operate with integrity because you genuinely care about the outcome. You adapt to whats needed navigating seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands-on execution.
• You are customer-obsessed. You build deep empathy for the customerboth internal and externaland anchor your decisions in solving their real-world problems. You champion their needs from start to finish knowing their success is our success.
• You are a positive force. You approach hard problems with constructive energy and a can-do spirit that is contagious inspiring your team to stay focused on the solution.
• You operate with urgency. You understand that in a high-growth environment speed and quality are not mutually exclusive. You have a relentless focus on execution and a bias for action delivering high-impact results quickly to win for the customer and the team.

What Were Looking for (Minimum Qualifications)

• 15 years of software engineering experience including 7 years leading engineering teams delivering complex production-grade systems
• Proven experience building and operating high-performance gateway/datapath or networking systems (e.g. L4L7 proxies firewalls VPN/tunneling packet processing routing/switching traffic steering) with strong fundamentals in performance and reliability
• Demonstrated ability to set technical strategy and drive execution across multiple workstreams with a track record of shipping impactful capabilities on predictable timelines
• Strong production ownership experience: operating mission-critical services driving SLOs/SLIs incident management root-cause analysis and continuous reliability improvements
• Excellent cross-functional leadership and communication skills able to align engineering product and operations stakeholders around priorities and tradeoffs

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)

• Strong experience designing building and operating SD-WAN datapaths and control/data plane interactions (overlay networking tunnel encapsulation traffic steering QoS path selection failover and telemetry)
• Experience delivering gateway/datapath capabilities in cloud-native multi-tenant environments including robust observability and automated safe rollout strategies
• Strong experience with routing and switching fundamentals and implementations (e.g. BGP/OSPF ECMP VRFs VLANs) in high-scale production environments

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-CM3

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:

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.

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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.