Senior Staff Software Engineer, Platform

What You Will Do

• Serve as a senior technical leader within Rippling's engineering organization
• Define and drive the long-term architecture of core platform systems that power dozens of products and hundreds of engineers
• Design highly scalable, reliable, and extensible distributed systems that serve as foundational building blocks across the company
• Lead large, cross-organizational initiatives that span multiple teams, products, and technical domains
• Translate ambiguous business and product requirements into elegant, durable technical solutions
• Drive architectural decisions that impact the future evolution of Rippling's Business Operating System
• Partner closely with senior engineering leaders to shape platform strategy and technical direction
• Build the infrastructure that enables AI systems to securely interact with live business data, workflows, permissions, and operational systems
• Develop core platform primitives that accelerate product development across the company
• Raise the engineering bar through mentorship, design reviews, technical leadership, and operational excellence
• Act as the directly responsible individual (DRI) for some of the company's most critical technical initiatives
• Help define how platform infrastructure evolves to support increasingly intelligent and autonomous software systems

What You Will Need

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant experience operating at the Staff or Senior Staff level
• Deep expertise designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems
• Strong experience developing platform infrastructure, shared services, or foundational engineering systems
• Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives across large engineering organizations
• Strong architectural judgment and a track record of designing systems that scale with both business growth and organizational complexity
• Experience building highly reliable backend systems in languages such as Python, Go, Java, or similar
• Strong computer science fundamentals, including distributed systems, concurrency, data modeling, networking, and systems design
• Experience operating in fast-paced, high-growth environments where ambiguity is high and execution speed matters
• Exceptional communication and influence skills, with the ability to align engineers, engineering leaders, and executive stakeholders
• A product mindset and passion for building platforms that unlock leverage for both developers and customers
• Excitement about the role AI will play in transforming enterprise software and the infrastructure required to support it

Why This Role Is Unique

Very few companies are attempting to build what Rippling is building. You'll work on the foundational systems that power an integrated Business Operating System spanning HR, IT, Finance, Identity, and Operations. You'll help architect the platform that enables hundreds of engineers to build products faster, while simultaneously defining the infrastructure that powers the next generation of AI experiences across the company. The systems you design won't support a single product or team. They'll become part of the foundation that every product at Rippling is built upon. If you're excited by hard distributed systems problems, platform architecture at scale, and helping define how AI interacts with real-world business systems, we'd love to talk.

Additional Information

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location. A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.