Sr. Software Engineer, Data Products

• Build and maintain production APIs, backend services, libraries, operational data stores, and data-processing applications.
• Participate in system design, design reviews, and technical tradeoff discussions.
• Design clear interfaces, service boundaries, schemas, and data contracts.
• Write modular, testable, observable, and maintainable software.
• Own systems through deployment, monitoring, incident response, maintenance, and retirement.
• Build reliable systems that handle retries, schema changes, duplicate events, partial failures, and unexpected inputs.
• Use AI throughout design, planning, implementation, testing, review, and codebase exploration.
• Validate AI-generated output and remain responsible for understanding and operating what you ship.
• Share useful AI workflows, experiments, and lessons with the team.
• Participate in on-call and improve systems based on production experience.

• Experience building backend services, internal platforms, developer tools, or distributed applications.
• Experience designing APIs and operational databases.
• Familiarity with asynchronous processing, queues, event-driven systems, or change-data capture.
• Experience handling idempotency, retries, concurrency, and backward compatibility.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, containers, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and observability.
• Experience with data pipelines, analytical systems, data modeling, or large-scale data movement.
• A habit of documenting AI experiments and developing repeatable workflows.
• Experience using AI to critique designs, find missing requirements, navigate codebases, generate tests, or evaluate implementation options.
• Practical opinions about where AI tools are useful, where they are unreliable, and how to improve their output.

We value engineers who take ownership, prefer simple systems, treat operations as part of engineering, ask questions when designs are unclear, give thoughtful feedback, and balance speed with reliability.

We also expect engineers to use AI aggressively but not uncritically, and to share what they learn so the whole team improves.

• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience: Minimum 5 years of experience in data engineering or software development, with a track record of designing and delivering production data systems.
• Table Stakes: Experience building, shipping, and operating production software. Strong programming skills in at least one general-purpose language. Meaningful programming experience beyond SQL. Understanding of modular design, APIs, testing, error handling, and maintainability. Working knowledge of relational data concepts, including schemas, keys, transactions, and data integrity.

with unit and integration testing and diagnosing production failures.

Willingness to own systems and participate in on-call.

Ability to contribute to design reviews and explain technical decisions clearly.

Active use of AI for more than code completion.

Sound judgment when evaluating AI-generated output.

A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical experience.

• Experience building, shipping, and operating production software.
• Strong programming skills in at least one general-purpose language.
• Meaningful programming experience beyond SQL.
• Understanding of modular design, APIs, testing, error handling, and maintainability.
• Working knowledge of relational data concepts, including schemas, keys, transactions, and data integrity.
• Experience with unit and integration testing and diagnosing production failures.
• Willingness to own systems and participate in on-call.
• Ability to contribute to design reviews and explain technical decisions clearly.
• Active use of AI for more than code completion.
• Sound judgment when evaluating AI-generated output.
• A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical experience.
• Soft Skills: Technical Leadership: Influences team architecture and engineering practices. Initiates improvements without being asked. Communication: Coordinates complex integrations across adjacent teams. Drafts design proposals and RFC documents clearly. Mentorship: Guides junior engineers through data design patterns, system thinking, and AI-assisted development practices. Product Thinking: Leads data products as first-class assets with consumer SLAs, versioning, and lifecycle ownership. Judgment: Makes sound technical tradeoff decisions. Balances delivery velocity with long-term code health.
• Technical Leadership: Influences team architecture and engineering practices. Initiates improvements without being asked.
• Communication: Coordinates complex integrations across adjacent teams. Drafts design proposals and RFC documents clearly.
• Mentorship: Guides junior engineers through data design patterns, system thinking, and AI-assisted development practices.
• Product Thinking: Leads data products as first-class assets with consumer SLAs, versioning, and lifecycle ownership.
• Judgment: Makes sound technical tradeoff decisions. Balances delivery velocity with long-term code health.

Zoro’s total compensation plan includes our Zoro Incentive Plan (ZIP) that is designed to foster and reward our team members for strong performance.

Total compensation will be highly competitive.

In addition to competitive compensation, Zoro offers comprehensive benefits and perks including:

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans with coverage starting on day one of employment
• Maternity support programs, nursing benefits, and up to 14 weeks paid leave for birth parents and up to 4 weeks paid leave for non-birth parents. We also support growing your family through access to adoption assistance program
• 6 free sessions each year with a licensed therapist and Wellhub portal membership to support your mental and emotional wellbeing
• At least 18 paid time off days annually for full-time employees and 6 company holidays per year
• 6% company contribution to a 401K Retirement Savings Plan each pay period, no employee contribution required
• Tuition reimbursement, student loan refinancing and access to financial counseling, education, and tools
• Charitable Gift Program - match gift to an eligible educational, cultural, community health, and human service organizations
• Employee discounts and admission to various civic and cultural institutions around Chicago
• Zoro office perks including coffee bar, beer on tap, unlimited snacks, access to the onsite gym, and incredible city skyline views

For additional information and details regarding our benefits and our parent company, W.

W.

Grainger, please click on the link here .

The pay range provided is not a guarantee of compensation.

The range listed reflects the expected base pay for this position at the time of posting, based on the role's job grade.

Actual compensation may vary depending on factors such as location, relevant experience and individual qualifications.

Zoro was founded in 2011 with a simple idea: make it easy for businesses to get the tools, parts, and supplies they need to keep things running.

We've grown by staying curious, moving quickly, and solving everyday challenges in smart, practical ways.

Backed by W.W.

Grainger and inspired by our endless assortment business model, we’re on a clear path toward our next big milestone: $2 billion in revenue—and beyond.

At Zoro, we don’t just follow a playbook—we help build it.

You’ll get to work on real problems with a supportive team that shares ideas freely, learns from each other, and celebrates wins together.

Our culture is grounded in values that guide how we show up every day: Winning & Learning Together , Being Customer Obsessed , Being Transparent , and Taking Ownership .

We don’t have all the answers, but we’re always asking good questions.

Zoro’s culture has been recognized by Fortune, Best Places to Work, and Built In Chicago—but the recognition we care about most comes from our team members, who make this place what it is.

We also know that flexibility matters.

Our hybrid work model gives you space to focus and the flexibility to live your life — asking team members to be onsite at least two days a week.

Our Chicago HQ (right above Ogilvie Transportation Center in the Accenture Tower) is always open and ready for connection, collaboration, or just a good cup of coffee.

At Zoro, we’re growing fast toward big aspirations — and we’re continuously excited about the new challenges we get to solve together.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are also committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible work environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment. Should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, including, but not limited to use of our website, any part of the application, interview, or hiring process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.