Sr. Staff Software Development Engineer

Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) 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. Distributed across 160+ public exchanges globally and thousands of private exchanges at the edge, the SASE-based Zero Trust Exchange is the world’s largest in-line cloud security platform.

We believe the future of work is Human + AI and are building an AI-native enterprise where human potential is amplified by machine intelligence to solve the world’s hardest security challenges. Driven by deep customer obsession, we are committed to the mission, outcome, and to each other. We bring these commitments to life through three core behaviors: ownership and collaboration, trust through outcomes and impact, and a challenge culture with ongoing feedback. Ready to make an impact at the company pioneering security transformation in the AI era? Join us at Zscaler.

We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Development Engineer reporting to the Director, Software Engineering to join our Client Connector Team. As a Senior Staff Engineer, you'll own critical service-layer components such as RPC, user session handling, data pipelines and help make CCA(Client Connector Agent) more stable, performant and maintainable.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

• Design and implement features across the CCA service, user-mode UI, and supporting subsystems (RPC server, session handler, data handler, tunnel telemetry).

• Diagnose and fix complex production issues: service crashes, race conditions, lifetime bugs, and cross-process synchronization problems.

• Improve reliability of long-running Windows service code, including cleanup/shutdown paths and inter-process communication.

• Work on VDI-specific flows (e.g., ZCC VDI SMB tunnel traffic accounting, session lifecycle).

• Review peers' code, raise the quality bar, and mentor other engineers on Windows systems programming.

Who You Are (Success Profile)

• You thrive in ambiguity. You're 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. True ownership involves leveraging dynamic range: the ability to navigate seamlessly between high-level strategy and hands-on execution.

• You are a problem-solver. You love running towards the challenges because you are laser-focused on finding the solution, knowing that solving the hard problems delivers the biggest impact.

• You are a high-trust collaborator. You are ambitious for the team, not just yourself. You embrace our challenge culture by giving and receiving ongoing feedback—knowing that candor delivered with clarity and respect is the truest form of teamwork and the fastest way to earn trust.

• You are a learner. You have a true growth mindset and are obsessed with your own development, actively seeking feedback to become a better partner and a stronger teammate. You love what you do and you do it with purpose.

What We’re Looking for (Minimum