Senior Software Development Engineer, Backend

Zillow

. Design, build, and own backend services and APIs for self-service cloud capabilities .

Posted 11/12/2026full-timeRemote • United StatesSenior💰 $156,200 - $262,600 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

Use this summary to align your resume positioning with the role.

Demonstrates expertise in designing and building backend services and APIs for cloud capabilities, with a strong focus on system design for distributed systems and API-based platforms. Proficient in cloud security fundamentals and experienced in leveraging public cloud services, particularly AWS, alongside infrastructure-as-code practices.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Backend Service DevelopmentAPI Design and ImplementationGolang or Python ProgrammingAWS Cloud ServicesInfrastructure-as-Code with Terraform

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Backend Service DevelopmentAPI DesignGolang ProgrammingPython ProgrammingAWS Cloud ServicesInfrastructure-as-CodeCI/CD Pipeline ManagementSystem Design for Distributed SystemsCloud Security FundamentalsTesting and Debugging

Tools & Technologies

TerraformGitLab PipelinesGitHub ActionsJenkinsArgo

Industry Keywords

Cloud CapabilitiesIAMNetworkingObservabilitySelf-Service PlatformService-to-Service NetworkingService MeshWorkload IdentityRate LimitingMulti-Account Environments

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsJenkinsLinuxPythonTerraformGo

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, build, and own backend services and APIs for self-service cloud capabilities
Expose account provisioning, networking, IAM, and policy through clean software interfaces
Turn recurring cloud work and manual runbooks into safe-by-default APIs, controls, and automation
Understand Zillow engineers’ use cases and shape platform interfaces and paved paths
Use feedback and usage data to drive the platform roadmap
Design for observability, SLOs, and self-healing
Participate in on-call responsibilities for production services
Lead follow-up work that eliminates classes of operational problems
Use modern AI-assisted and agentic tooling to accelerate design, implementation, and operations
Influence Platform Engineering’s approach to public cloud enablement and roadmap decisions
Turn foundational capabilities into a cohesive self-service platform

Requirements

What you’ll need

6+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating backend or platform services in production
Solid system design skills for distributed systems and API-based platforms
Production experience in Golang or Python (preferred), or another modern language
Solid testing, code review, and debugging habits
Strong experience with at least one public cloud provider, preferably AWS
Knowledge of AWS primitives including VPCs, subnets, routing, load balancers, security groups, IAM, compute, and storage
Experience with infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform
Working knowledge of cloud security fundamentals, including IAM, network segmentation, encryption, and policy enforcement in multi-account environments
Hands-on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines such as GitLab Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or Argo
Experience building or contributing to internal platforms or developer tooling is nice to have
Experience treating an internal platform as a product is nice to have
Familiarity with service-to-service networking, service mesh, workload identity, or rate limiting is nice to have
Strong Linux systems and networking fundamentals is nice to have
U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions

Benefits

Comp & perks

Equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location
Remote work from a physical location of the employee's choice
Flexibility to work from wherever employees are most productive
Accommodation support for disabilities or special needs
Equal employment opportunity and inclusive workplace commitment