# Staff Software Engineer at Zania Staff Software Engineer at Zania in Palo Alto, CA and 1 more. Full-time, paying $200k–$250k. Posted August 3, 2026. - Company: Zania - Location: Palo Alto, CA and 1 more - Job type: Full-time - Pay: $200k–$250k - Experience: 5+ years - Posted: 2026-08-03 - Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zania/b26b95f4-1f56-4068-a157-1cdbb3276c18/application - Source: https://jobmagic.ai/jobs/staff-software-engineer-zania-wmyjk5 ## Requirements - Experience: 5-12 years of professional software engineering experience (not intended for recent graduates). - Proven Technical Impact: A demonstrated track record of delivering complex, high-quality backend systems. - Product Building Experience: You have a history of building and launching robust products or platforms, ideally in a hyper-growth or 0-to-1 startup environment. - Deep Technical Expertise: You are a hands-on, highly technical backend engineer with proficiency in: - Python: For building robust backend services and AI pipelines. - Large-Scale Systems: Experience with distributed systems, large-scale data processing (e.g., Spark), and cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP). - TypeScript and React: Experience is a plus for contributing across the stack but is not required. - Ownership and Drive: You take full ownership of your projects, demonstrating a strong bias for action and the ability to manage complex priorities in a fast-paced environment. - Pragmatic Problem-Solving: You are a proactive and resourceful problem-solver who is comfortable with ambiguity and sees immense challenges as opportunities for growth. - Clear Communication: You can articulate complex technical ideas clearly and persuasively to stakeholders across the organization. ## Description ### **Founding Software Engineer (Mid–Senior Level)** ### **Why Zania** Every enterprise spends millions of dollars on Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). It's one of the most critical, yet universally painful, parts of running a business. For decades, this industry has been dominated by legacy systems with notoriously low NPS scores, making it totally ripe for disruption. Zania is building **agentic AI for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)** to solve this massive problem. We are on a **rocketship trajectory**, creating intelligent agents that automate and augment the most complex risk and compliance workflows. We have found exceptional product-market fit and are scaling our team very quickly. Some reasons to join Zania are: - **Dream Customers:** Our customers are the most notable enterprises in the world, including FAANG, Big 4 firms and a portfolio of top customers. - **Tier 1 Backing:** Funded by a leading Tier 1 venture capital fund, giving us the resources to build a generational company. - **World-Class Team:** Zania is hiring the best. Our team includes AI and Security leaders from Airbnb, Microsoft, Bain & Company, Deloitte, PwC, Brex, and Instacart. - **Pioneering Technology:** Our engineers and GRC experts work at the absolute forefront of applied AI, building the next generation of agentic systems that will define the future of compliance. - **Hyper-Growth:** We have seen **10x ARR growth** in the last year and are rapidly expanding. - **Competitive Compensation & Equity.The Role:** As a Software Engineer, you will be a core member of our engineering team, building the backend systems that power both our core product and our agentic AI platform. This is a backend-focused role for engineers who thrive on solving challenges at a massive scale; full-stack experience is a strong plus. You will design, build, and deploy the critical infrastructure and services that handle everything from petabyte-scale data retrieval to running thousand-step AI agents. This is a unique opportunity to tackle some of the most demanding problems in computing today and build systems with government-level security and reliability. **What You'll Do:** - Engineer Core Product Features: Take ownership of building and delivering scalable, secure backend services that directly power our user-facing product. - Build Petabyte-Scale AI Pipelines: Design and implement robust systems for retrieval over petabyte-scale document troves and engineer pipelines for large-scale data collection. - Develop Advanced Agentic Systems: Build the backend infrastructure for complex, 1000-step planning agents that help companies with critical processes, and create organizational-level interfaces for human-AI collaboration. - Contribute to the architecture and management of our cloud infrastructure, ensuring high availability and performance. - Engineer systems with the highest standards of security and reliability to protect the world's most sensitive data. **What We're Looking For:** - **Experience:** 5-12 years of professional software engineering experience *(not intended for recent graduates).* - **Proven Technical Impact:** A demonstrated track record of delivering complex, high-quality backend systems. - **Product Building Experience:** You have a history of building and launching robust products or platforms, ideally in a hyper-growth or 0-to-1 startup environment. - **Deep Technical Expertise:** You are a hands-on, highly technical backend engineer with proficiency in: - **Python:** For building robust backend services and AI pipelines. - **Large-Scale Systems:** Experience with distributed systems, large-scale data processing (e.g., Spark), and cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP). - **TypeScript and React:** Experience is a plus for contributing across the stack but is not required. - **Ownership and Drive:** You take full ownership of your projects, demonstrating a strong bias for action and the ability to manage complex priorities in a fast-paced environment. - **Pragmatic Problem-Solving:** You are a proactive and resourceful problem-solver who is comfortable with ambiguity and sees immense challenges as opportunities for growth. - **Clear Communication:** You can articulate complex technical ideas clearly and persuasively to stakeholders across the organization. **Minimum Qualifications** - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience - 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with demonstrated impact on production backend systems - Hands-on proficiency in Python and experience with distributed systems, large-scale data processing, or cloud infrastructure - Strong written and verbal communication skills — you will work closely with cross-functional teams and must clearly convey complex technical decisions to engineering peers and non-technical stakeholders **Compensation and benefits** - Flexible PTO policy. - Medical, dental, and vision insurance - Meals and snacks in the office - Relocation and immigration support Zania is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.