Director, Software Engineering

Job Description

Join us at Zendesk, where we are on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. We're accelerating that ambition by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences, because behind every interaction lies an opportunity to make a human connection.

We are seeking a Director of Software Engineering, based in our San Francisco office, to lead and scale global Platform engineering teams. In this role, you’ll drive the architecture and delivery of API-first, cloud-native platform services that enable partners and customers to build intelligent, AI-powered experiences at scale. You will move the needle on Zendesk’s strategic goals by delivering reliable, extensible platform capabilities and connecting those capabilities to our AI and ecosystem strategies.

Location

• Primarily based in our San Francisco office. We expect frequent onsite collaboration with product, design, and leadership teams; hybrid work arrangements may be available based on team needs.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead and grow multiple scrum teams, distributed in US and APAC regions, focused on building Technology Platform products for external customers; set priorities, remove blockers, and ensure predictable delivery.

• Define technical and product-aligned platform strategy (API-first, extensibility, security, scale) and translate it into roadmaps and execution plans.

• Own architecture and engineering decisions for web services, RESTful APIs, SDKs, and integration points with internal/external ecosystems.

• Partner closely with Product, Design, Security, and AI teams to deliver features that enable AI agentic actionability and cross-system interactions.

• Mentor engineering managers and senior engineers; hire, develop, and retain top talent; establish strong team culture and engineering practices.

• Drive operational excellence (SLA/SLOs, observability, scalability, incident management, CI/CD) to maintain high availability and performance for external customers.

• Drive architectural and technology initiatives for high-throughput, low-latency, globally distributed Platform systems and services (horizontal scaling, performance tuning, resiliency, etc.)

• Stay current with, leverage, and evaluate AI tools, technologies, and protocols (Claude coding, Cursor, LLMs, embeddings, RAG, Agent frameworks, orchestration protocols) to inform product opportunities and integrations.

What you bring to the role

• Proven leader who has successfully managed multiple globally distributed scrum/Agile teams delivering platform or external-facing products.

• Deep hands-on expertise with modern web development stacks, RESTful API design, and frameworks (examples: React/TypeScript, Node/Express, Java/Spring, Go, or equivalent).

• Strong familiarity with AI tools, technologies, and integration patterns (AI coding, LLMs, RAG, vector embeddings, agent frameworks, model APIs) and their operational requirements.

• Experience designing and operating cloud-native, microservices-based architectures (Kubernetes, serverless, containerization).

• Track record of partnering with product and customer-facing teams to deliver usable, extensible APIs and SDKs.

• Excellent communicator and mentor; comfortable presenting technical strategy to executives, senior stakeholders and customers.

• Bias for data-informed decisions and strong focus on reliability, security, quality, customer health, and developer experience.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years total software engineering experience, including a minimum of 5 years leading multiple scrum teams building technology platform products for external customers.

• Hands-on experience designing and shipping RESTful APIs and web applications with one or more modern frameworks and languages.

• Demonstrated experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into production systems or enabling AI-driven products.

• Proven success operating cloud-native distributed systems at scale (Kubernetes, cloud providers, CI/CD, observability).

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior Director-level leadership in a SaaS or platform company, delivering external-facing developer platforms or partner integrations.

• Practical experience with agent frameworks and protocols that enable agentic behavior (e.g., orchestration patterns, tool-use, safety/guardrails).

• Strong background in developer experience (API design, SDKs, docs, developer tooling) and/or platform product management.

• Advanced degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent industry experience.

• Experience with security, privacy, and compliance considerations for external platforms (OAuth, mTLS, data governance).

The US annualized base salary range for this position is $275,000.00-$413,000.00. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

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 click here.

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 peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.