Principal Software Development Engineer - Rust
Zscaler·Principal·Hybrid · Bengaluru
Posted Oct 27, 2026·zscaler.com
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 200+ public data centers globally and thousands of private sites 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 Principal Software Engineer to join our team. This is a hybrid role, reporting to the Sr. Director of Software Engineering in the Platform Convergence department. In this role, you will design and scale high-performance backend services to drive the evolution of our converged platform. You will collaborate across teams to build robust distributed systems while mentoring engineers to uphold technical excellence.
What You’ll Do (Role Expectations)
- Design and build a low-latency, high-throughput data forwarding plane using Rust and async/await models for efficient service-oriented infrastructure
- Develop distributed, scalable systems with a heavy focus on concurrency, fault tolerance, and messaging
- Implement and maintain gRPC-based APIs and services to integrate forwarding plane capabilities with control and orchestration layers
- Optimize system performance through deep profiling across kernel-space and user-space
- Drive technical excellence through code reviews, architectural discussions, documentation, and mentoring junior engineers
Who You Are (Success Profile)
- You thrive in ambiguity. You're comfortable building the path as you walk it.
- You act like an owner. Your passion for the mission fuels your bias for action.
- You are a problem-solver. You love running towards the challenges.
- You are a high-trust collaborator. You are ambitious for the team, not just yourself.
- You are a learner. You have a true growth mindset and are obsessed with your own development.
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
- 14+ years of software development experience with specific expertise in systems programming and Rust
- Extensive experience with async frameworks such as Tokio or async-std
- Proven track record of building resilient, observable, and horizontally scalable distributed systems
- Deep understanding of Linux fundamentals, networking, container-based environments, CI/CD, and kernel-user space interaction
What Will Make You Stand Out (Preferred Qualifications)
- Experience leveraging AI-assisted developer tools, automated profiling, or AI acceleration libraries to optimize low-latency software architecture
- Professional experience with systems languages like C/C++ or Go in performance-critical environments and kernel-space technologies like eBPF, XDP, or DPDK
- Hands-on experience with gRPC, Protobufs, and L2–L4 networking protocols including TCP/IP, UDP, and QUIC
