Staff Software Engineer
Lead cross-team strategic engineering initiatives and embed in teams to resolve urgent technical challenges. Requires 10+ years experience, strong architecture and distributed systems expertise, and hands-on coding ability.
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Platform
Senior technical leader defining long-term architecture for Rippling's core platform and AI infrastructure. Designs scalable distributed systems and leads cross-org initiatives that power the company's Business Operating System.
201k – 345kSan Francisco, CANew York, NYSeattle, WAEngineering ManagementHybrid10+ YOE
About the role
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
Skills
PythonGoJavaDistributed SystemsPlatform InfrastructureSystem DesignConcurrencyData ModelingNetworkingBackend Systems
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