Lead Software Engineer (India)

Why Zania

Every enterprise spends millions of dollars on Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). It's one of the most critical, yet universally painful, parts of running a business. For decades, this industry has been dominated by legacy systems with notoriously low NPS scores, making it totally ripe for disruption.

Zania is building agentic AI for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) to solve this massive problem. We are on a rocketship trajectory, creating intelligent agents that automate and augment the most complex risk and compliance workflows. We have found exceptional product-market fit and are scaling our team very quickly. Some reasons to join Zania are:

• Dream Customers: Our customers are the most notable enterprises in the world, including FAANG, Big 4 firms and a portfolio of top customers.

• Tier 1 Backing: Funded by a leading Tier 1 venture capital fund, giving us the resources to build a generational company.

• World-Class Team: Zania is hiring the best. Our team includes AI and Security leaders from Airbnb, Microsoft, Bain & Company, Deloitte, PwC, Brex, and Instacart.

• Pioneering Technology: Our engineers and GRC experts work at the absolute forefront of applied AI, building the next generation of agentic systems that will define the future of compliance.

• Hyper-Growth: We have seen 10x ARR growth in the last year and are rapidly expanding.

• Competitive Compensation & Equity.

The Role: Lead Software Engineer (India)

As a Lead Software Engineer based in India, you will be a core member of Zania’s global engineering team, building the backend systems that power both our core product and our agentic AI platform.

This is a product-focused role for engineers who thrive on solving hard problems at massive scale. Full-stack experience is a strong plus.

You will work closely with US-based engineers and product leaders, with daily collaboration and required overlap with Pacific Time (PT) hours. This role is ideal for engineers in India who enjoy global ownership, real-time collaboration, and leading complex systems end-to-end.

What You’ll Do

• Engineer Core Product Features:
  Own and deliver scalable, secure backend services that directly power Zania’s user-facing product.

• Develop Advanced Agentic Systems:
  Build frontend and/ or backend infrastructure for complex, 100-step planning agents and create organizational-level systems for human-AI collaboration.

• Global Collaboration:
  Work closely with US-based engineers and stakeholders, participating in design reviews, planning, and execution with regular overlap with PT timezone.

• Cloud Infrastructure Ownership:
  Contribute to the architecture, scalability, and reliability of our cloud infrastructure, ensuring high availability and performance.

• Security & Reliability:
  Engineer systems that meet the highest standards of security and reliability to protect some of the world’s most sensitive enterprise data.

What We’re Looking For

• Experience: 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.

• Proven Technical Impact: A strong track record of delivering complex, high-quality backend and/ or systems in production.

• Product-Focused Mindset: Experience building and launching robust products or platforms, ideally in a hyper-growth or 0-to-1 startup environment.

• Backend Expertise: Hands-on experience with:

  • Python for backend services and AI/data pipelines

  • Distributed systems & large-scale data processing (e.g., Spark or similar)

  • Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Backend Expertise: Experience with TypeScript and React.

• Ownership & Leadership: Ability to take full ownership of projects, lead technical decisions, and operate with a strong bias for action.

• Comfort with Ambiguity: Pragmatic, resourceful problem-solver who thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.

• Excellent Communication: Able to clearly explain complex technical ideas and collaborate effectively with global, cross-functional teams.

• Timezone Overlap: Willingness to work with regular overlap with US Pacific Time (PT) to enable tight collaboration with the US engineering team.

• High-Bar Engineering Background: You’ve been trained in an exceptionally high-expectation environment—such as a top-tier Indian or global technology startup, or a leading academic institution (e.g., IITs or equivalent)—where engineering rigor, speed, and ownership are held to a global standard.

Zania is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.