
Staff Software Engineer, Activation Team
Zigsaw
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Hybrid
Location: San Francisco • California • United States
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Salary
💰 $177,185 - $364,795 per year
Job Level
Tech Stack
About the role
- Lead the technical roadmap for activation backend systems, defining the highest-impact opportunities for new and returning users
- Drive hands-on backend engineering across APIs, event pipelines, production systems, and recommendation serving
- Build signal infrastructure that captures user intent from entry points and makes it available to recommendation systems
- Collaborate closely with ML engineers, building the backend infrastructure that ML models depend on
- Partner with product managers and data scientists to translate user problems into technical opportunities
- Drive cross-team technical initiatives, authoring design documents and building alignment across engineering orgs
- Own system reliability, production readiness, and operational health for activation backend systems
- Mentor and develop engineers on the team
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience building and shipping large-scale backend systems at consumer internet companies
- 2+ years of experience as a senior IC driving cross-team projects with measurable business impact
- Strong product mindset with the ability to identify which technical problems matter most for business impact
- Track record of rapid execution and driving projects to completion in ambiguous environments
- Strong systems design skills across distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and service-oriented backends
- Familiarity with ML infrastructure concepts and ability to build systems that support ML workloads
- Strong collaboration and communication skills across engineering and product audiences
- Experience mentoring engineers and establishing technical best practices
- Demonstrated ability to use AI to accelerate your workflow while maintaining high standards for verification, data integrity, and ownership of final outputs
- Degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience
Benefits
- Equitable workplace
- Inclusive workplace
- Inspiring workplace
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
backend engineeringAPIsevent pipelinesproduction systemsrecommendation systemssystems designdistributed systemsevent-driven architecturesservice-oriented backendsML infrastructure
Soft Skills
collaborationcommunicationmentoringproduct mindsetrapid executiondriving projects to completionestablishing technical best practices
Certifications
Degree in Computer Science