Principal AI Engineer

About the role

Zscaler is seeking a Principal AI Engineer to develop and advance the core AI platform that drives customer success initiatives. This role focuses on building reusable capabilities that power various AI applications and internal solutions, rather than individual products. You will collaborate with multiple teams to ensure the platform supports scalable, secure, and reliable AI experiences.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Create and enhance the Customer Success AI platform, including reusable services and architectural blueprints for multiple AI products and internal AI applications.
• Develop and maintain essential AI infrastructure such as orchestration services, context management, memory services, workflow execution frameworks, and scalable architectures for multi-agent systems.
• Improve platform performance in areas like model routing, latency, cost, reliability, monitoring, governance, and security for enterprise-grade operation.
• Guide technical architecture and engineering standards across various AI products, mentor AI Engineers, and promote engineering quality through shared frameworks and platform features.
• Work with Product Management, Engineering, IT, Security, Data, and Customer Success teams to assess new AI technologies, define adoption strategies, and align platform development with long-term business and enterprise architecture goals.

Requirements

• Possess a fundamental understanding of AI/ML technologies and experience applying, securing, or deploying AI-driven solutions to improve outcomes in your area of expertise.
• Demonstrate a strong curiosity and active engagement with AI tools, with a history of integrating new technologies to enhance daily tasks and problem-solving.
• Have 10 or more years of software engineering experience, including at least 4 years focused on building production AI or machine learning systems.
• Exhibit deep knowledge of distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, and enterprise-scale software design principles.
• Show a solid grasp of AI agents, LLM orchestration, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), planning systems, and common enterprise AI architectural patterns.
• Proven experience in designing reusable platforms and establishing technical architecture across multiple products or engineering groups.
• Possess strong leadership, mentoring, communication, and systems thinking abilities, with the capacity to influence technical direction in complex settings.

Nice to have

• Experience building autonomous agentic loops with advanced memory architectures and state management frameworks for sustained enterprise workflows.
• Experience designing enterprise AI platforms and creating reusable components that support multiple AI products from a unified foundation.
• Experience building multi-agent orchestration frameworks and integrating enterprise tools via APIs and MCP servers.
• Experience with semantic models, enterprise memory, vector search, knowledge graphs, and other advanced knowledge system concepts.

Skills & tools

• AI/ML Technologies
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud-Native Architectures
• Enterprise-Scale Software Design
• AI Agents
• LLM Orchestration
• RAG
• Planning Systems
• Enterprise AI Architecture Patterns
• Software Engineering
• Technical Architecture
• Leadership
• Mentoring
• Communication
• Systems Thinking

Practical notes

• Base Pay Range: $185,500 - $265,000 USD
• Zscaler offers comprehensive benefits including various health plans, time off, parental leave, retirement options, and education reimbursement.
• Zscaler is committed to equal employment opportunities and a diverse, inclusive workplace.
• Zscaler complies with all applicable pay transparency rules.
• Reasonable accommodations are available for candidates requiring support during the recruiting process.