Zeta Global seeks a Lead Software Engineer for the Real-Time Events team to design, build, and operate the real-time event pipeline ingesting and processing high-volume event data. Responsibilities include technical leadership, architecture ownership, evaluating and implementing new technologies, collaborating with engineering and product teams, mentoring, and ensuring infrastructure reliability and on-call support. Required qualifications include 8-10 years of software engineering experience with event streaming systems (Kafka), Python (FastAPI), Spark/EMR, AWS services, full software lifecycle experience, proficiency in Python or Scala/Java, database experience (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB), scheduler experience (Apache Airflow), operational mindset, and strong communication skills. Benefits include unlimited PTO, medical/dental/vision coverage, employee equity, discounts, wellness classes, and pet insurance. Salary range is $200,000 to $210,000 depending on location and experience. The role is remote within the United States.
What you'll do
Design, implement, and launch event-pipeline features in production
Own architecture for the parts of the pipeline you lead
Similar jobs
More roles worth a look
Related opportunities based on specialty and working model so candidates can keep momentum.
Bellevue, United States; Boston, United States; Boulder, United States; Chicago, United States; Denver, United States; Los Angeles, United States; New York, US; San Francisco, United States; San Jose, United States; Seattle, United States; Ventura, United States•13 days ago
Evaluate existing or emerging technologies for cost, latency, or operational advantage and implement them in production
Engage in architectural discussions, take ownership of key pipeline projects, and define stable contracts with downstream consumers
Mentor through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing
Help teammates ship via clear interfaces, solid tests, and production-ready patterns
Partner with Product, Data, and ZMP consumer teams to turn SLAs (latency, throughput, correctness) into working systems
Instrument services, improve alerting, and own on-call gaps
Drive post-incident fixes including root cause analysis, code fixes, runbooks, and dashboards
Keep the pipeline predictable under load
Requirements
Minimum of 8–10 years in software engineering, including Lead/Staff-level work on event, streaming, or data-infrastructure systems
Production experience with event streaming (Kafka or equivalent), Python services and APIs (e.g. FastAPI), and pipeline processing (Spark/EMR or equivalent)
Proficient in designing, deploying, and operating systems on AWS (S3, SQS/SNS, Lambda, RDS, and similar)
Experience with the complete software development lifecycle, from design through production, monitoring, and on-call
Fluency in Python or substantial experience in Scala and Java
Skilled with data stores used around event pipelines (e.g. Postgres/MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB or similar)
Experience with orchestrators such as Apache Airflow
Track record owning high-throughput pipelines in production: incidents, performance and cost, observability, data quality, and SLOs
Excellent interpersonal and communication abilities; can explain pipeline design and trade-offs to partners who consume ZMP event data
