Principal Software Engineer

Level Up Your Career with Zynga!

At Zynga, we bring people together through the power of play. As a global leader in interactive entertainment and a proud label of Take-Two Interactive, our games have been downloaded over 6 billion times—connecting players in 175+ countries through fun, strategy, and a little friendly competition.

From thrilling casino spins to epic strategy battles, mind-bending puzzles, and social word challenges, our diverse game portfolio has something for everyone. Fan-favorites and latest hits include FarmVille™, Words With Friends™, Zynga Poker™, Game of Thrones Slots Casino™, Wizard of Oz Slots™, Hit it Rich! Slots™, Wonka Slots™, Top Eleven™, Toon Blast™, Empires & Puzzles™, Merge Dragons!™, CSR Racing™, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells™, Match Factory™, and Color Block Jam™—plus many more!

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in California, our teams span North America, Europe, and Asia, working together to craft unforgettable gaming experiences. Whether you're spinning, strategizing, matching, or competing, Zynga is where fun meets innovation—and where you can take your career to the next level.

Join us and be part of the play!

Position Overview

Passionate about technology? Join our team at Zynga making an impact across all of the company’s games - Mobile Game Tech! We are in search of an outstanding individual with a passion for technology and the ability to work with a team with dynamic strengths. The Principal Software Engineer will play a key role in the organization, focusing on advanced technology developments to architect, build, and maintain scalable end-to-end products and services.

What You'll Do

• Design, architect, build and maintain new and existing backend applications/services running in AWS
• Optimize and refactor existing services to improve reliability, scalability and to lower cost
• Document and build plans for architecture and system designs
• Take a hands-on approach in architecting, writing and reviewing code
• Review detailed tech plans from others, aligning with the team and Zynga-wide technical vision
• Proactively identify and recommend improvements to address systemic problems and tech debt
• Follow engineering standard methodologies to ensure code quality, performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Collaborate effectively with teammates, contributing to an innovative environment of technical excellence.
• Work collaboratively across teams to understand product/customer requirements and propose technical solutions
• Provide production and integration support for shared technology across Zynga games

What You Bring

• Degree in a technical field (e.g., Computer Science, Computer Engineering) or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of hands-on software development experience
• Experience in programming RESTful services using Java, Golang, Python or PHP
• Strong familiarity and experience using AWS and/or other cloud computing platforms (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
• Experience with database systems (SQL, NoSQL)
• Familiarity with containers and Kubernetes
• Deep understanding of algorithms, design patterns, debugging and performance optimization
• Excellent ability to work efficiently with teammates and independently.
• Excellent interpersonal skills - particularly the ability to discuss timelines, design concerns, work with distributed teams, and provide effective feedback to team members.
• Experience in object-oriented design of applications/systems
• Familiarity with web development using JavaScript, Angular, and/or React is a plus

What We Offer You 

Zynga offers a world-class benefits package that helps support and balance the needs of our teams. To find out more about our benefits, visit the Zynga Benefits

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization.  Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic – not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at accommodationrequest@zynga.com to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.

Please be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others.  Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel.  Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage.  Zynga’s  in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).