Senior Staff Software Engineer - Operational Tools
Foster City, CA / Seattle, WA / San Diego, CA
Software – Product Software /
Full-time /
Hybrid
Zoox is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer to serve as the technical leader — effectively the CTO for our Operational Tooling organization. Operational Tooling sits at the heart of Zoox’s ability to scale, and is one of the company’s highest priorities now that we’re live on public roads.
This is a rare opportunity to combine technical breadth and depth with org-level influence, helping to define how a world-class autonomous mobility company scales its operations.
In this role, you will:
- Set technical direction for a ~40-engineer org, shaping the systems that will enable us to grow from dozens of vehicles to thousands of robots and ultimately millions of riders.
- Provide architectural leadership across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and AI investments — ensuring reliability, scalability, and technical excellence.
- Act as a multiplier: define and reinforce the engineering culture, raise the bar through mentorship, and build a deep bench of talent to accelerate our growth.
- Operate with autonomy and impact: you’ll have broad latitude to focus where you see the greatest opportunity, whether that’s driving AI/ML adoption, designing fault-tolerant distributed systems, or evolving developer productivity.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with leaders across Zoox to ensure our tooling ecosystem remains a competitive advantage as we scale.
Qualifications
- 14+ YOE and Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in an engineering, mathematics, or related field.
- Demonstrated technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, set direction, make effective short/long-term tradeoffs, and iterate on solutions.
- Experience with system design and building products from scratch.
- Development experience with a modern web-based stack, distributed systems, modern cloud infrastructure, C++, and databases.
Bonus Qualifications
- Advanced degree or certification
- Experience operating mission critical APIs and services at scale.
$290,000 - $365,000 a year
Base Salary Range
About Zoox
Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
Accommodations
If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note:
You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
