Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Data Lake, Anomaly Detection

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.

Role

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our team. This is a hybrid, based in San Jose, CA 3 days a week role, reporting to the Sr. Manager, Software Engineering in the Zscaler Digital Experience (Core Intelligence and Data) department. You will join the team responsible for building the world’s largest cloud security platform, helping us enhance services and increase our global footprint. You will play a pivotal role in enabling organizations worldwide to harness speed and agility through a cloud-first strategy, leveraging our multitenant architecture that serves over 15 million users.

What you’ll do (Role Expectations)

• Own agentic troubleshooting framework, framing high-impact use cases, designing workflows and playbooks, and building processes for all products

• Evaluate and integrate state-of-the-art GenAI advances to deliver reliable and cost-efficient production features, utilizing LLMs, various machine learning models, data processing, fine-tuning, and inference optimization

• Work with the world class cloud platform and data lakes for feature exploration and generation

• Handle volume data with the real time pipeline for data processing and aggregation

• Design, implement, and operate scalable production systems, specifically focusing on microservices, data pipelines, orchestration, and caching

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 Qualifications)

• Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience leveraging, securing, or positioning AI-driven solutions to optimize outcomes within your functional domain

• BS in Computer Science with 6+ years of experience, or MS/PhD with 5+ years of experience solving real-world problems using AI/ML and distributed systems

• Proficiency in programming, data structures, algorithms, and machine learning, with exceptional problem-solving skills driven by first-principles thinking

• Hand-on experience with AI modeling, including feature generation, prompt engineering, evaluations and productionization

• Experience in the full lifecycle of ML models (building, deployment, monitoring, optimization) alongside expertise in designing and operating distributed microservices using Kubernetes and Docker in Python, Go, or Java

What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience designing and scaling autonomous AI agents, agentic orchestration workflows, and advanced large language model (LLM) tooling to automate complex cloud infrastructure troubleshooting or incident response

• Experience fine-tuning and deploying proprietary SLMs/LLMs at scale, with a focus on optimizing latency, cost, safety, and evaluations

• Experience delivering production-ready AI systems, including expertise in anomaly detection, event correlation, incident investigation, and resilient systems with well-defined service-level objectives

#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.

Pay Transparency

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.