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ZipRecruiter

Staff Software Engineer, Job Seeker Apps

ZipRecruiter is hiring a Staff Software Engineer, Job Seeker Apps in Chicago, United States. It pays $195k-$255k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on ZipRecruiter.

Level's read on this job

  • On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
  • Pay on this posting starts 16% higher than the typical software engineer posting on Level.
  • The posting mentions AI agents among its tools and skills.
  • ZipRecruiter has 51 other open roles on Level.
  • Posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

ai-agents

We offer a hybrid work environment. Most US-based positions can also be performed remotely (any exceptions will be noted in the Minimum Qualifications below.)

Our Mission:

To actively connect people to their next great opportunity.

Who We Are:

ZipRecruiter is a leading online employment marketplace. Powered by AI-driven smart matching technology, the company actively connects millions of all-sized businesses and job seekers through innovative mobile, web, and email services, as well as through partnerships with the best job boards on the web. ZipRecruiter has the #1 rated job search app on iOS & Android.

About the Team:

The Job Seeker Apps team builds the primary interfaces and proactive communication systems that guide millions of users through their job search journey. Our team focuses on transforming the job search experience from passive searching to proactive opportunity. Here’s how we do that:

  • Supporting Job Seekers Everywhere: We build interfaces and platforms to reach job seekers wherever they are. Our team owns ZipRecruiter’s mobile apps and ZipRecruiter’s interfaces to third party AI and agentic systems. We are responsible for growing these channels so job seekers can continue their job search wherever works for them.
  • Proactive Messaging and Communication: We build the critical systems for composing and sending the right information (emails, push notifications) to job seekers at the optimal time. Our goal is to transform ZipRecruiter into a personal recruiter, optimizing content, volume, and scheduling to ensure job seekers find satisfying opportunities while meeting employer hiring needs.
  • Capturing Job Seeker Wants and Offers: We help job seekers succeed in our marketplace by helping them express what they want out of their next opportunity, and what they offer to their potential employer, through experiences like the profile page and apply flow.
  • Guiding the Logged-In Experience: We own the tools and systems that guide a user's job search, including the logged-in homepage. We deliver personalized content, new job recommendations based on user history, and proactive guidance on the current state of their search to help them secure their next great role.

About the Job:

We are seeking a highly autonomous and versatile Staff/Senior Software Engineer to join our Job Seeker Apps team. In this role, you’ll support engineering leadership, driving systems thinking and end-to-end development. You’ll work closely with the teams behind job seeker profiles and our AI agent experiences, building the core systems that carry a job seeker’s information and intent into our marketplace. This is a high-impact position where you will actively collaborate with Product and Decision Science teams to shape user-facing features and AI-driven workflows.

What You’ll Do:

  • End-to-End Systems Engineering: Operate across multiple problem spaces—from data engineering to backend infrastructure and full-stack integration.
  • Cross-Functional Product Strategy: Partner closely with Product Management and Decision Science to inject engineering perspectives early in the product development lifecycle.
  • Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Act as a technical anchor, up-leveling an engineering team, guiding ICs, and keeping Engineering Managers aligned on technical execution.
  • Impact Measurement: Design and implement creative, data-driven methods to measure the real-world success of newly shipped user-facing features.
  • AI Integration: Architect how ZipRecruiter is presented in AI assistants and agentic systems, with the measurement and guardrails to run those integrations safely at scale.

Minimum Qualifications:

  • 8+ years of professional software development experience
  • Strong computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented programming, data structures, and algorithms
  • A track record of building user-facing products with measurable impact
  • Experience working with Product Managers to turn user problems into engineering solutions
  • Deep curiosity about the product you work on and the problems it solves

Bonus Points for Experience With Any Of:

  • Client-side development using ReactJS, TypeScript, or other modern languages and frameworks
  • A data lake stack: parquet on object storage, a data catalog such as AWS Glue, an open table format such as Apache Iceberg or Delta Lake, a data processing framework like Apache Spark or Flink
  • Product development in consumer-facing marketplaces
  • BS/MS/PhD in Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, related technical field or equivalent practical experience

As part of our team you’ll enjoy:

  • Competitive compensation
  • Exceptional benefits package
  • Flexible Vacation & Paid Time Off
  • Employer-matched 401(k) plan

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $195,000 - $255,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location, and the range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location, role-related knowledge and skills, depth of experience, relevant education or training, and additional role-related considerations.

Depending on the position offered, equity, bonuses, commission, or other forms of compensation may also be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and other benefits.

ZipRecruiter is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetics.

Privacy Notice: For information about ZipRecruiter's collection and processing of job applicant personal data for this job, please see our Privacy Notice at: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/careers/job-applicant-privacy-notice

How we rate this

Staff Software Engineer, Job Seeker Apps at ZipRecruiter rates 62 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

AI agents

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

This job starts at
$195k
Typical software engineer job
$168k

This posting starts 16% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
  2. Describe a typical day in a role like this one: which parts run through AI directly?
  3. If you removed AI from this role, what would be left, and how do you decide what still needs a human?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
  • Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
  • Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.

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