We're looking for a well-rounded Staff Engineer to join our Ruby infrastructure team. Our mission is to ensure that Ruby and Rails continue to meet the needs of Zendesk's customers and our fellow engineers. That means reducing infrastructure costs, enhancing system performance, improving developer experience, standardizing workflows to improve productivity, ensuring product availability, and conducting research to drive innovation and adopt emerging technologies. As a team we have broad impact across Zendesk's projects, services, and organizations. If you thrive in a role that balances hands-on engineering with strategic impact in a Ruby-centric environment, this is the role for you.
We’re running the latest Ruby and Rails versions, including edge releases. We are unapologetic Ruby enthusiasts, passionate about every facet of the language and ecosystem, and our team has made direct contributions to both Ruby and Rails. We’re proud maintainers of numerous open source projects and actively contribute back to the broader Ruby community. If giving back and influencing the future of Ruby excites you, this role offers a unique opportunity to have an impact beyond Zendesk.
Helping maintain Zendesk’s core monolith Rails applications that serve billions of requests per day.
Keeping enterprise Ruby systems up to date.
Contributing to open source projects.
Actively collaborating in evolving the workflow and processes together with the members of the team.
Modernizing legacy systems.
Identifying and implementing standardized practices to improve productivity across teams.
Supporting our deployed services to ensure a high level of stability and reliability.
Mentoring junior team members, as well as pairing with more experienced colleagues and learning from each other.
6+ years developing server-side applications in Ruby, or similar backend programming languages.
Demonstrated ability to build and operate distributed systems at scale.
Expertise in relational data stores (MySQL, Postgres).
Experience with provisioning and deploying services with a cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure).
Sound understanding of architecture and software design patterns for server-side and web domains.
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
Open, thoughtful, and empathetic approach to your work.
A desire to continually learn and share technical skills.
Significant experience developing web applications in Ruby.
Experience working in C.
Proficiency with AWS.
Experience in performance testing, capacity planning, and cost optimization for large-scale, complex data pipelines and systems. This includes identifying bottlenecks, ensuring scalability, and minimizing operational costs in cloud-based data environments.
Contributor to or maintainer of open source projects.
Our code is written in Ruby, TypeScript, Go, Python, and Java.
Our servers live in AWS.
Our services interface through Kafka, REST and GraphQL on top of Istio.
Our data is stored in S3, Redis, ElasticSearch, DynamoDB, and Aurora.
Our services are deployed to Kubernetes.
What you will be doing will have a huge impact.
A team of passionate people who love what they do.
Exciting projects, ability to implement your own ideas and improvements.
Contribute to the wider open source community.
Opportunity to learn and grow.
We're rapidly growing our teams in Krakow, Poland and Lisbon, Portugal. We have exciting next-generation AI-powered products that are already in use by customers in the banking and finance area, online and offline retailers, and even national postal services. You will work with a driven team, passionate about delivering the right experience to end-users using sophisticated data ingestion and retrieval technology.
The intelligent heart of customer experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.
The Poland annualized base salary range for this position is zł304,000.00-zł456,000.00. Please note that while the salary range represents the minimum and maximum base salary rate for this position, the actual compensation offered will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other relevant factors. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives that will be communicated during the offer stage.Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.
The intelligent heart of customer experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.
Skills Required
- 6+ years developing server-side applications in Ruby or similar languages
- Ability to build and operate distributed systems at scale
- Expertise in relational data stores such as MySQL, Postgres
- Experience with cloud providers like AWS, GCP, Azure
- Understanding of architecture and software design patterns
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- Desire to continually learn and share technical skills
Zendesk Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Zendesk and has not been reviewed or approved by Zendesk.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — The company states a commitment to publishing base pay ranges and advancing pay equity, helping employees gauge fairness. Public messaging on pay equity and transparency signals structured, consistent compensation practices.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time away programs include flexible PTO, dedicated well‑being days, emergency time off, and pregnancy loss leave. Parental leave is described as generous, and travel support exists for reproductive care where access is restricted.
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Healthcare Strength — Benefits language highlights comprehensive medical, dental/vision, mental health access, and an employee assistance program. These offerings are positioned as part of holistic wellbeing support across regions.
Zendesk Insights
What We Do
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love. We advocate for digital first customer experiences— and we stick with it in our workplace. Over 5,000 employees worldwide are collaborating from kitchen tables, home offices, co-working spaces, and Zendesk workspaces to make one team.
Why Work With Us
We know one desk doesn’t fit all. At Zendesk, we prioritize remote work because we believe great work happens anywhere. Digital first is more than where we work though. We give our employees flexibility and choice in both where and how they work while also trusting them to be a team player.
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