Backend Engineer Jobs in Madison, WI (NOW HIRING)

Join us at Zendesk, where we're on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. We're accelerating that ambition by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences, because behind every interaction lies an opportunity to make a human connection. We're seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own the data layer that powers Zendesk's AI products. In this role, you'll build and scale integrations and analytics infrastructure that transform raw support data into trusted automation recommendations - directly enabling customers to reduce support costs and improve customer outcomes.

What you'll be doing

• Design, build, and maintain robust platform connectors (ETL: Client Extractor Transformer Loader) across thirdparty systems, handling auth, pagination, rate limits, and schema drift.

• Extend and scale the Discover insights engine: clustering topics, detecting knowledge gaps, calculating deflection/opportunity impact, and surfacing automation recommendations.

• Build and operate resilient data pipelines: real-time webhooks, incremental sync, reindexing, and metrics aggregation with worker queues.

• Design, optimize, and maintain search indices and aggregation pipelines for full-text, vector, and hybrid search at scale.

• Solve distributed systems problems around multi-tenant isolation, webhook security, incremental sync correctness, and fault-tolerant processing.

• Collaborate with product, ML, and design to turn analytics outputs into reliable, explainable customer-facing metrics and recommendations.

What you bring to the role

• Strong backend engineering instincts and ownership mindset; you take systems from prototype to production-grade.

• Deep experience building data pipelines or integration platforms with attention to correctness and observability.

• Practical knowledge of search and analytics infrastructure powering RAG and retrieval features.

• Experience with distributed job processing patterns and worker queue design.

• A collaborative approach for working with product, data science, and customer-facing teams to deliver measurable ROI.

Basic qualifications

• 3+ years professional backend engineering experience, ideally in B2B SaaS.

• Proficient in Python and backend frameworks (we use FastAPI).

• Production experience with MongoDB, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, and Redis.

• Experience designing and operating distributed job processing (RQ, Celery, or similar).

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with ETL/orchestration tools (Dagster, Airflow) and S3-based storage patterns.

• Familiarity with NLP pipelines, embeddings, or production RAG systems.

• Experience with system design for multi-tenant SaaS and webhook security (HMAC/OAuth).

• Prior work on analytics engines that translate metrics into product recommendations.

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 peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.