# Principal Software Engineer

**Company:** [ZoomInfo](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/zoominfo)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $164k – $257k/yr
**Experience:** 8+ years
**Skills:** Distributed Systems, Microservices, Event Processing, Machine Learning, LLMs, LangGraph, Kafka, Kinesis, ClickHouse, Java, Go, Python, SQL, Snowflake, Airflow
**Posted:** 2026-08-24

> Leads the design and implementation of distributed advertising, identity, and intent systems processing billions of events in real time. The role requires deep backend, data infrastructure, or applied AI/ML experience, strong programming and data modeling skills, and technical leadership.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design and build distributed systems that process, enrich, and respond to billions of behavioral events per day in real time.
- Develop high-performance APIs and services supporting advertising, identity, and intent features across the Marketing Platform.
- Apply machine learning and large language models (LLMs) to behavioral data for classification, signal extraction, and intelligent decision-making.
- Build intelligent agents using frameworks such as LangGraph or MCP.
- Design and operate streaming and batch data pipelines.
- Drive quality, performance, scalability, and observability across owned systems.
- Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, and engineers on customer-facing features and internal tooling.
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship.

## Requirements
- 8+ years of backend, data, or infrastructure engineering experience, or equivalent impact and leadership.
- Strong experience with distributed systems engineering, big data infrastructure, or applied AI/ML involving LLMs.
- Proficiency in one or more of Java, Go, or Python.
- Strong SQL and large-scale data modeling knowledge.
- Familiarity with databases and infrastructure tools including ClickHouse, DynamoDB, Bigtable, Memcached, Kafka, Kinesis, Firehose, Airflow, and Snowflake.
- Experience designing LLM-powered systems such as RAG pipelines, agent frameworks, or intelligent workflows.
- Comfort using LLM-based development tools such as Copilot, Cursor, ChatGPT, or Claude.

## Nice to Have
- Experience in ad tech, real-time bidding (RTB), or programmatic systems.
- Background in identity resolution, attribution, or behavioral analytics at scale.
- Open-source contributions in ML, infrastructure, or data tooling.
- Strong product instincts and a focus on meaningful customer outcomes.

## Compensation and Benefits
- Base salary: $163,800–$257,400 USD.
- Comprehensive benefits and holistic mind, body, and lifestyle programs are offered.
- Additional compensation such as bonus, commission, and equity may apply.

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**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/321d9735-5810-4c6b-8258-31d35c43e582