# Senior Engineering Manager - Payroll Platform

**Company:** [Rippling](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/rippling)
**Location:** Seattle, WA, San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Salary:** $207k – $345k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Backend, Distributed Systems, Cloud Infrastructure, Data Platforms, System Design, Infrastructure Reliability, Backend Efficiency, Payroll Processing, Orchestration
**Posted:** 2026-06-02

> Lead a high-impact engineering team to build the foundational payroll platform, focusing on backend strategy, data throughput, and complex orchestration logic. Drive platform excellence, system design, and infrastructure reliability while collaborating across teams.

## Job Description

## About the role
As the Senior Engineering Manager for the Payroll Platform team, you’ll lead a high-impact engineering team for building the foundational platform within payroll organization that enable and support critical flows around payroll processing, approvals, corrections and many more.

In addition, this role will have a significant impact on Rippling’s growth and success, and make technical and business decisions which will shape the future of the product and company. We are looking for someone who takes immense pride in building excellent scalable products, building winning teams and being able to rally these towards a vision, and can attract and retain top talent.

## What You'll Do
* **Architect for Scale:** Lead the predominant backend strategy to evolve the Run Management engine, ensuring it can handle massive data throughput and complex orchestration logic.
* **Orchestrate Complexity:** Manage the flow of raw HR inputs into the calculation engine, ensuring the "end-to-end tail engine" produces accurate, reliable outputs for high-stakes financial processes.
* **Drive Platform Excellence:** Operate as a pure platform leader. You will focus on systems design, infrastructure reliability, and backend efficiency rather than traditional consumer-facing product features.
* **Collaborate Across Charters:** Act as a strong communicator and bridge between the Onboarding and Payroll Processing pods, ensuring the Run Management layer serves as a seamless interface.

## Who You Are
* 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5+ years in a senior leadership capacity.
* **Scale Veteran:** You understand the nuances of high-concurrency systems and distributed platform architecture.
* **Infrastructure Mindset:** You have a background in building robust systems on top of cloud infrastructure and have ideally managed data platform or infrastructure-heavy teams.
* **Leader of Leaders:** You have significant experience coaching and developing Engineering Managers, not just individual contributors.
* **Backend Specialist:** You possess deep technical expertise in backend systems and orchestration patterns.
* **Strong Communicator:** You can navigate a complex organizational structure, managing multiple charters and stakeholders with clarity and precision.

## Additional Information
This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity.

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