As a Senior Software Engineer, Big Data on Zillow’s Streaming team within the Data Platform organization, you will lead the design and evolution of large-scale Kafka and Flink infrastructure supporting tier-0 and tier-1 workloads. Your responsibilities include driving critical initiatives in platform modernization, developing streaming control planes, APIs, CLIs, and provisioning systems, and enhancing reliability through SLO definition and monitoring. You will also mentor engineers and contribute to long-term platform strategy by evaluating modern streaming ecosystem capabilities such as managed Kafka offerings and serverless stream processing. The role requires 5+ years of experience with large-scale distributed systems, proficiency in languages like Python or Java, and expertise in cloud environments and Kubernetes. Preferred qualifications include working with streaming vendors, leading system design efforts, and integrating streaming systems with analytics platforms for AI capabilities.
Design and build large-scale Kafka and Flink infrastructure supporting critical workloads.
Lead modernization initiatives for the streaming platform, including architecture evolution.
Develop and enhance control planes and APIs for standardized streaming resource management.
Improve platform reliability through SLO definition, monitoring, and incident response automation.
Enable simplified stream processing patterns to reduce bespoke infrastructure needs.
Evaluate and integrate modern streaming ecosystem capabilities and managed Kafka offerings.
What we're looking for
5+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Significant production experience with Kafka and Flink, including performance tuning and incident resolution.
Proficiency in at least one programming language: Python, Java, or Scala.
Experience operating services in cloud environments like AWS and Kubernetes.
Strong skills in designing scalable, multi-tenant systems with reliability and observability.
Experience defining and operating against SLOs, participating in on-call rotations.
Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and CI/CD systems.
Market check
Salary context
This
$160,900–$257,100
range sits above
85%
of similar postings on FindRole.
Peer median band
$117,000–$199,400
Median floor and ceiling across peers.
Typical midpoint (25–75%)
$135,000–$175,825
Middle half of comparable postings.
Based on 240 comparable postings.*
* 240 is the maximum number of comparable postings sampled.
Employer
About Zillow
Zillow Group is a leading real estate and rental marketplace providing consumers with data, tools, and services to find, buy, sell, rent, and finance homes, and connecting buyers with agents and lenders. Industry: Real Estate Technology & Marketplace
Zillow currently has
33 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$160,900–$257,100
across 33 roles with salary data.