Principal Software Engineer, Applied AI Services

Zillow
Mexico City
Workplace: RemoteFull timeFunction: Software EngineeringSkills: ["Databricks","Spark","Kafka","Airflow","Kubernetes","AWS","GraphQL","REST","Python","Java","SQL"]

Lead architecture and evolution of Zillow's backend and AI systems across Shopper Journey Services, blending large-scale microservices, data pipelines, and LLM-powered workflows. Architect end-to-end applied AI services, build reusable components, and drive production-grade AI capabilities with strong focus on reliability, observability, and safety. Collaborate across AI/ML, data platform, and backend teams to ship platform-wide AI features.

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FursaFursa
Zillow
Zillow
4 months ago

Principal Software Engineer, Applied AI Services

âś“ Verified Job

Canonical indexed version, validated from employer's careers page.

Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 22 days agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead architecture and evolution of Zillow's backend and AI systems across Shopper Journey Services, blending large-scale microservices, data pipelines, and LLM-powered workflows. Architect end-to-end applied AI services, build reusable components, and drive production-grade AI capabilities with strong focus on reliability, observability, and safety. Collaborate across AI/ML, data platform, and backend teams to ship platform-wide AI features.
Location: Mexico City
Workplace: Remote
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Software Engineering

Key Responsibilities

  • •Architect end-to-end applied AI services that connect offline data ingestion, AI/ML/LLM workflows, and online services and APIs, defining shared patterns for batch and streaming data pipelines (e.g., Databricks, Spark, Kafka or equivalents), feature and signal stores, and evaluation and guardrail frameworks for AI-powered capabilities.
  • •Create reusable building blocks—such as libraries, templates, and reference implementations—that make it straightforward for product teams to integrate AI into their services and ship AI-powered features faster.
  • •Lead conventional backend and platform excellence by architecting and guiding high-scale microservices in a Kubernetes environment, driving patterns for event-driven architectures (including event schemas, contracts, and consumption patterns), and setting standards for databases, caching, and data access that support both HDP backend and AI use cases.
  • •Drive AI/ML and LLM-powered systems from prototype to production, including ingestion and transformation of training and inference data, integration of models and LLMs into online decision flows and APIs, and the definition of evaluation methodologies, metrics, and regression gates (e.g., LLM-as-judge, offline/online evaluation, human-in-the-loop review loops).
  • •Partner with AI/ML, Agentic AI, and data platform teams to clarify ownership boundaries and interfaces (for example, around cross-cutting evaluation capabilities such as Evaluate MCP), and to ensure AI systems remain measurable, debuggable, and reproducible as they scale.

Pay and Benefits

Equity and Bonus:Equity

Key Requirements

  • •You have 10+ years of software engineering experience with a strong track record of delivering and scaling complex, distributed backend systems in large engineering organizations.
  • •You have built large-scale microservices and event-driven architectures in cloud environments (AWS or equivalent), ideally including Kubernetes, and you bring strong expertise in databases, caching, and data-intensive services, including schema design, performance optimization, and reliability.
  • •You are experienced with data pipelines and ML workflows (e.g., Databricks, Spark, Kafka, Airflow or equivalents) and how they connect to online systems, and you have designed system-wide abstractions, frameworks, or platforms that are used by multiple teams.
  • •You have hands-on experience building or scaling AI/ML or LLM-powered systems in production, including integrating models or LLMs into production services, owning or co-owning data ingestion, feature pipelines, or model-serving paths, and defining or implementing evaluation and guardrail mechanisms.
  • •You have led cross-team technical initiatives as an IC, influencing architecture and standards beyond a single team, and you communicate clearly with engineers, product partners, and leadership to drive clarity and alignment in ambiguous problem spaces.
Experience:Real estateSaaSAI/ML
Skills:DatabricksSparkKafkaAirflowKubernetesAWSGraphQLRESTPythonJavaSQL
Tech Stack:DatabricksSparkKafkaAirflowKubernetesAWSGraphQLRESTPythonJavaSQL

Company Brief

Zillow
Operates an online real estate marketplace providing listings, valuation estimates, rentals, and agent tools. Connects buyers, sellers, renters, and real estate professionals with data-driven search, home Zestimate valuations, and advertising services.
Industry: Online Marketplaces
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: Seattle, United States
Founded: 2006
WebsiteLinkedIn