Senior Product Engineer, Zum

Backend

$190-260k

+ Stock options

AWS

Kubernetes

TypeScript

GCP

Python

Java

Kafka

Node.js

Postgres

Segment

Datadog

Senior and Expert level

San Francisco Bay Area

On-site Monday - Thursday

3+ days a week in office (Redwood City, CA)

Student transportation services

Open for applications

Student transportation services

201-500 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceLogisticsTransportRidesharing

Open for applications

$190-260k

+ Stock options

AWS

Kubernetes

TypeScript

GCP

Python

Java

Kafka

Node.js

Postgres

Segment

Datadog

Senior and Expert level

San Francisco Bay Area

On-site Monday - Thursday

3+ days a week in office (Redwood City, CA)

201-500 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceLogisticsTransportRidesharing

Company mission

To bring student transporation into a new era enabling greater safety, sustainability, equity, and transparency.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

If you are a self-driven developer who enjoys solving complex problems and building impactful solutions, you will love this job
Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science or equivalent degrees
5+ years of industry experience as a Software Engineer
Experience in building enterprise software platforms
Hands-on architecture design and coding skills
Experience working with relational and non-relational databases
Excellence in one or more programming languages - Node.js, Java, Python
Hands-on experience with deploying and managing apps on the cloud - AWS/Google
Strong technical experience and eagerness to establish good engineering practices
Good planning, organization, and decision-making skills
Good communication with engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders
Good sense of humor with a great ability to work with others

Desirable

Passionate about working for a mission-driven company
Experience working in the transportation industry
Strong experience with NodeJS and Typescript

What the job involves

We are looking to add Senior Engineers to our backend engineering team. You will have opportunities for hands-on contribution in building Zum’s technology platform
You will be the owner of one or more backend platform verticals
You will get to build customer-facing product features and build/expand platform capabilities as you see fit for your needs to deliver business value
You will build microservices with the latest technologies like Kubernetes, Kafka, Postgres, gRPC, etc
You will get to actively contribute towards establishing good engineering practices - write high-quality, maintainable, testable, and scalable code, and perform code reviews
You will develop applications to improve visibility and traceability across the system using tools like Datadog, Rollbar, Segment, etc

Our take

The largest mass transit system in the US is student transportation, and it’s more than double the size of all others combined. It’s rife with inefficiencies, however: circuitous routes mean many students are spending more time travelling and less time sleeping, exercising, or participating in enrichment activities, affecting student outcomes and inequalities.

Zum is looking to overhaul school transport with the help of cloud computing and AI. It has a central hub from which it manages route planning and vehicle assignments across 4,000 areas and school districts in California, meaning fleet deployment, maintenance, and operational efficiency can be optimised. It also offers cameras and tracking in vehicles, and is committed to having a fully electric, 10,000-strong bus fleet by 2025.

It's an ambitious plan, but it’s clear that the US school busing system is in dire need of an overhaul. We’re seeing startups like Via offer a similar service to NY schools, gathering similarly strong momentum. With Zum having reached Unicorn status in 2024 thanks to new funding, and its California roll-out continuing without a hitch, it appears, for now, to be leading the modern student transportation startup pack.

Kirsty

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Led by a woman

Top investors

18% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (4.2)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)

Apr 2026

$100m

GROWTH EQUITY VC

Jun 2024

$32m

GRANT

Total funding: $468.8m

Company benefits

Medical, dental and vision benefits, including paid membership to One Medical
Unlimited vacation policy
Free daily catered lunches + fully stocked kitchen at HQ
Ability to have a huge impact at an early-stage, mission-driven startup
Fun office culture and a team you would be proud to work with

Company HQ

Redwood Shores, Redwood City, CA

Leadership

Ritu Narayan

(Co-Founder & CEO)

Worked as a Lead Product Manager at Yahoo!, eBay, then took up a Sloan Fellowship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Vivek Garg

(Co-Founder & COO)

Spent over a decade as a Major in the Indian Army, then went on to found and lead BAPAR, before taking up a Researcher role at Stanford University's SEED Institute.

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