# Senior Software Engineer - Payroll Data

**Company:** [Rippling](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/rippling)
**Location:** Bengaluru, India
**Role:** Data Engineering
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Data Modeling, Data Pipelines, Python, Django, ETL, Data Contracts, Schema Evolution, Query Performance, Bitemporal Data, Event Sourcing, Trino, Apache Iceberg, Materialization Pipelines, Data Observability, Backend Engineering
**Posted:** 2026-05-05

> Designs and evolves foundational payroll data models and materialization pipelines across multiple countries. The role requires 5+ years of software engineering experience, strong backend and data modeling expertise, and the ability to lead cross-team architecture and reliability efforts.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Own the design and evolution of payroll data models spanning earnings, deductions, taxes, contributions, and employer costs across 40+ countries, balancing correctness, extensibility, and query performance.
- Architect and scale materialization pipelines that transform raw payroll events and configurations into consistent, query-ready datasets for reporting, analytics, filings, and compliance.
- Define and maintain data contracts between the payroll data layer and its consumers, ensuring stability and clarity at every integration boundary.
- Tackle data modeling problems involving temporal state management, multi-country regulatory variation, and bitemporal data patterns.
- Drive performance optimization across materialization and query paths, ensuring required latency, freshness, and correctness.
- Improve observability and operational tooling for data pipelines, including monitoring for drift, staleness, schema violations, and materialization failures.
- Lead cross-team technical discussions on data model changes, schema evolution, and materialization strategies.
- Mentor engineers and raise standards for data modeling rigor, pipeline reliability, testing, and documentation.
- Shape long-term data architecture with stakeholders across payroll, platform, and analytics.

## Requirements
- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience focused on data modeling, data pipelines, or data platform work.
- Experience designing data models for complex domains, including normalization, temporal state, schema evolution, and flexibility versus query performance trade-offs.
- Strong backend engineering fundamentals with experience in Python, Django, or similar stacks.
- Experience building and operating materialization or ETL pipelines at scale.
- Ability to design data contracts and interfaces consumed by multiple teams, including backwards compatibility, versioning, and documentation.
- Strong debugging and problem-solving skills for tracing data correctness issues across multiple system layers.
- Comfort working in ambiguous, cross-functional environments.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including articulating modeling trade-offs and documenting data semantics clearly.

## Nice to Have
- Experience with payroll, fintech, HR technology, or regulated financial systems.
- Familiarity with bitemporal data patterns, event sourcing, or analytical query engines such as Trino and Iceberg.

## Compensation and Benefits
- Competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and equity opportunities.
- The exact salary is determined based on experience, skills, and location.
- For employees residing within a defined radius of a Rippling office, working on-site at least three days a week is considered an essential function of the role.

## Similar jobs

- [Senior Data Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/87b44df0-4459-4294-af40-945c2cbeaa59) - Alpaca - Remote
- [Senior Software Engineer, Data Platform](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/09f9016a-d53e-4957-a969-b6d31d4c715c) - StarTree - Remote
- [Senior Data Platform Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/da1f63fd-893e-4369-a892-9c78b03e1423) - Earnin - Bengaluru, India
- [Senior Software Engineer - Connectors](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f22a1619-2377-4c4d-95c1-96090e6745ee) - Fivetran - Bengaluru, India
- [Senior Data Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/343874f7-5ca9-4171-97c2-fc07cc342448) - Snowflake - Pune, India

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/b131ac03-598c-49e0-9213-5c4ee7ead1cf
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/b131ac03-598c-49e0-9213-5c4ee7ead1cf