Staff Software Engineer - Payroll Orchestration, Processing, Run Managament & Calculation
Staff technical leader responsible for architecting and scaling Rippling’s global payroll calculation engine. The role requires 8+ years of software engineering experience, expertise in distributed backend systems, and strong skills in Python, Django, architecture, and data modeling.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical architecture for a global payroll calculation engine supporting multiple countries.
- Own end-to-end delivery of complex features from design and technical specifications through production deployment and monitoring.
- Drive the technical roadmap, including performance improvements, reliability work, and architectural refactors.
- Translate ambiguous technical challenges into concrete, actionable plans.
- Build scalable, maintainable, and extensible systems while ensuring data integrity across interdependent services.
- Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and champion code quality, testing, and observability best practices.
- Collaborate with Product Management, HRIS, and engineering leaders on platform-wide solutions.
Requirements
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
- Proven technical leadership and organization-wide impact.
- Expertise building large-scale, distributed backend systems.
- Strong proficiency in Python and Django preferred.
- Experience managing the complete project lifecycle and independently delivering complex initiatives.
- Deep expertise in system architecture, data modeling, and core services with clean abstractions.
- Strong product judgment and experience building robust systems for business-critical workflows.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills for explaining complex technical concepts.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience with MongoDB or similar NoSQL databases.
Compensation
- Annual salary range: $189,000–$330,750, plus benefits and equity.
Skills
Python, Django, MongoDB, NoSQL, Distributed Systems, System Architecture, Data Modeling, Backend Systems, Data Integrity, Testing, Observability
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