Principal Software Development Engineer – Data Loss Prevention Systems

Job Description

Principal Software Development Engineer (Backend Dev – C/Linux/GDB) | Zscaler

The Tone:
This is a Hybrid role at Zscaler. Zscaler builds the world’s largest in-line cloud security platform, the Zero Trust Exchange, which protects thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss globally. This role is crucial for a Principal Engineer to serve as a premier technical leader, defining architectural direction, designing high-performance systems-level subsystems, and driving the engineering execution of next-generation inspection capabilities within the Data Protection department.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Location: Hybrid
• Team: Data Protection department, reporting to the Senior Manager, Software Development Engineering.
• Mission: Define architectural direction, design high-performance systems-level subsystems, and drive the engineering execution of next-generation inspection capabilities.
• Tech Stack: C, Linux, GDB, FreeBSD, Valgrind, AWS, Azure, ML, LLDB

What You’ll Actually Do
• Architect & Implement: Architect and implement high-performance DLP engines, dictionary compilers, and distributed incident processing pipelines, setting the benchmark for clean, highly optimized systems-level C code.
• Drive Technical Direction: Own the technical direction and architectural roadmap for line-rate pattern matching, regular expression evaluators, custom dictionary compilers, exact data match (EDM), and indexed document matching (IDM).
• Develop ML Solutions: Help develop next-generation Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions utilizing Machine Learning (ML) models, collaborating with data science teams to deploy and integrate models in high-throughput data paths.
• Define Architectural Standards: Establish and enforce exacting architectural standards for multi-threaded C daemons on FreeBSD/Linux, designing robust shared memory structures, high-performance Inter-Process Communication (IPC), lockless concurrency, and memory-safe subsystems.
• Resolve Critical Issues: Serve as the technical escalation authority for critical production issues, leading hands-on post-mortem core dump analysis, deep system profiling, and leak detection.

The Must-Haves
• Background: 10+ years of systems software engineering, including a proven track record of technical leadership as a Tech Lead or Principal Engineer. Foundational understanding of AI/ML technologies.
• Experience: Proven track record of driving the design and delivery of high-performance backend platforms, with experience mentoring and guiding other software engineers.
• Skills: Advanced hands-on proficiency in C programming on Linux or FreeBSD, with deep architectural expertise in Inter-Process Communication (IPC) and shared memory architectures. Expert-level proficiency in production troubleshooting and root-cause analysis, including post-mortem core dump analysis, GDB/LLDB debugging, Valgrind, and system-level performance tracing.
• Bonus: Proven ability to leverage AI technologies and workflows to drive measurable operational efficiency. Strong familiarity with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies, including regex evaluation engines, custom dictionary compilers, and EDM/IDM profiles. Hands-on experience or familiarity with public cloud environments (specifically AWS and Azure).