Software Engineer, Cloud Engineer - Software, Full Stack Developer

About the Team

Join a nimble, high‑performing team at Zendesk’s Madison office dedicated to building and reinventing the backbone of our global search platform. As part of Madison’s search team, you’ll deliver innovative solutions to one of the world’s largest SaaS customer support infrastructures.

Staff Software Engineer – Search ETL

• Develop and maintain scalable, robust data delivery systems in Ruby on Rails.
• Drive innovation and modernization as we overhaul our architecture, enrich platform capabilities, and set the standard for data pipelines at scale.
• Make key technical decisions and own solutions end‑to‑end, from concept to deployment and ongoing operations.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to scope, estimate, and deliver high‑impact projects.
• Take part in operational excellence: implementing canary deployments with Spinnaker, incident response with incident.io, proactive monitoring with Datadog.
• Help shape team culture through code reviews, pair programming, and knowledge sharing, always striving for collective excellence.
• Contribute to a positive, collaborative atmosphere in our beautiful Madison office.

• Strong experience building large‑scale, high‑throughput data pipelines with Ruby.
• Experience with queuing/messaging systems (Kafka, SQS, or similar).
• Hands‑on background with relational and No
  
  SQL databases.
• Familiarity with modern CI/CD (Git Hub Actions), containerization/deployment (Kubernetes on AWS), and operational tooling (Spinnaker, Datadog, incident.io).
• Ability to navigate complex system design and architectural decisions, especially in distributed platforms.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills—able to work productively with engineers, product, and design.
• Eagerness to mentor, learn, and contribute to a supportive, growth‑minded team dynamic.

• Experience with AI‑driven data augmentation.
• Exposure to Java in production environments.
• Insights into the challenges of integrating and scaling SaaS systems.
• Interest in platform modernization and re‑architecture initiatives.

• Direct influence on a key global platform with a well‑defined, ambitious 3‑year roadmap.
• Dynamic, collaborative culture where your voice is heard and your work has real impact.
• Opportunities for technical and career growth alongside smart, driven teammates.

The US annualized base salary range for this position is $–$. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

Hybrid:
This role is designed to combine office and remote work. You will be required to attend our local Madison office part of the week. The specific in‑office schedule will be determined by the hiring manager.

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 we’re 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 .

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.