This position is in Zama’s Developer Platform team.

Zama recently unveiled the Zama Confidential Blockchain Protocol, which enables confidential smart contracts on top of any blockchain L1 or L2, using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). The Zama Developer Platform (ZDP) is our managed gateway that lets internal teams and external developers use the open-source Zama Protocol through simple, authenticated HTTPS endpoints. Think Infura or Alchemy, but confidential by default.

We are looking for a hands-on Principal Platform Engineer to take ownership of our platform architecture and establish the technical vision for our developer portal, API management layer, and relayer/oracle backends. You will be the authority on API standards, reliability, and security, directly shaping a scalable and trusted platform through your deep expertise and technical leadership.

What you will do

• Own platform architecture & API governance: Define gateway policies (auth, rate limits, quotas), versioning/deprecation, multi-tenancy and abuse protections, request/response contracts, idempotency, and error semantics. Make crisp trade-offs that keep delivery moving under real deadlines.

• Uplevel software practices via code reviews & standards: Lead cross-repo reviews and mentorship across our developer portal, API management layer, and relayer/oracle services to elevate technical excellence.

• Drive reliability & release engineering: In partnership with SRE/DevOps and QA, set SLOs, error budgets, and actionable alerting; implement CI/CD, canary deployments, and safe rollbacks; and ensure on-call readiness with clear runbooks.

• Deliver security-by-default: Architect OIDC/OAuth2 flows, secure token lifecycles, least-privilege IAM, secrets management, audit trails, and robust edge protections.

• Shape metering & billing foundations: Ensure accurate usage capture and reconciliation for usage-based products; lead the integration with billing engines like Stripe.

• Guide on-chain ↔ off-chain integration: Set patterns for reorg-aware relayer and oracle services (owned by Dev Platform); collaborate with the Zama Protocol team on contract interfaces and upgrade cadence.

• Experience: 5+ years in backend/platform engineering, including 2+ years in a Staff, Principal, or senior technical lead role where you set technical direction and owned SLOs/incident outcomes for a high-scale service.

• Core background: Direct experience building core infrastructure at a managed blockchain SaaS provider (API gateways, developer platforms) or major API-first company (FinTech/cloud) with a demonstrable grasp of web3 systems.

• API gateway depth: Hands-on expertise with gateways, ideally Kong (policies, rate limiting, metering), auth (OIDC/OAuth2 providers like Auth0) and familiarity with developer portals/analytics like Moesif.

• Polyglot engineering: Proficiency in TypeScript or Rust (deep in at least one) and working knowledge of the other; able to review production code in both.

• Billing literacy: Strong knowledge of usage metering and billing for SaaS (Stripe or similar), including plan design, usage events, invoicing, and reconciliation.

Nice to have

• Experience writing Kong plugins (Lua) and using Moesif for analytics or developer portal workflows.

• Exposure to usage-based pricing design and aligning API quotas/limits with commercial plans.

• Familiarity with AWS, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/OpenTofu/Terragrunt), and modern CI/CD practices with Github Actions.

• Only candidates based in +/-4 hours of UTC are suitable for this role.

📋 Step 1: The Application Form
Start your journey by filling out our application form. This is your chance to introduce yourself and showcase your unique skills and experiences.

🏆 Step 2: The Challenge
Next up, tackle our challenge! This is where you can shine and show us how you approach and solve real-world problems.

💼 Step 3: The Technical Interview
Dive deep into your technical knowledge with our team. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and passion for the field.

🤝 Step 4: Cultural Fit & Compensation Chat
Meet with our COO to discuss our company culture and explore how you can thrive with us. We’ll also discuss compensation to ensure we’re on the same page.

🛠️ Step 5: The Hacking Trial
Put your skills to the test in a real-world hacking scenario. This trial helps us see your practical skills in action and how you handle challenges.

🔍 Step 6: The Reference Check & Offer
As a final step, we’ll conduct a reference check to confirm your qualifications and past experiences. If all goes well, you will get an offer soon.

We provide more details on our process here. Exceptional candidates will hear from us as we advance through the recruitment process.

Zama values and promotes diversity. We give everyone a fair chance to be evaluated on their professional, academic, and personal skills. Our aim is to make the hiring process as pleasant, stress-free, and friendly as possible, even if the process is longer and more involved than you might find elsewhere.