Senior Staff Software Engineer - Global PayrollEngineeringSan Francisco, CA

Senior Staff Engineer For Payroll

Rippling is rapidly expanding its global footprint, and our Payroll product is the engine that executes on the most critical transaction between a company and its employees. Every Rippling product—from HRIS and Benefits to Time and Attendance—culminates in Payroll, which serves as the ultimate system of action for employee compensation.

As a Senior Staff Engineer for the Payroll organization, you will serve as a technical leader responsible for both the foundational platform primitives and the complex product experiences built upon them. You'll design and scale the core systems that power global payroll while also owning the end-to-end engineering of mission-critical workflows relied on by hundreds of thousands of employees and administrators. This role requires broad technical vision, deep hands-on execution, and the ability to influence across multiple teams and functions.

What You Will Do

• Set and drive the technical strategy for the Payroll org, defining the long-term direction for architecture, calculation performance, data integrity, and reliability across both platform and product surfaces.
• Design and deliver core data models, APIs, services, and abstractions that form the backbone of the Payroll platform and are adopted broadly across engineering.
• Own end-to-end engineering of critical Payroll product flows (e.g., running a payroll, generating compliance reports, managing off-cycle payments), ensuring robustness, accuracy, and scalability.
• Lead cross-org initiatives such as international payroll expansion, payment rail integrations, and high-availability architecture that cut across multiple teams.
• Raise the engineering bar by influencing design and execution across the org, mentoring senior engineers, and driving best practices in distributed systems and financial data processing.
• Collaborate closely with engineering leadership across Payroll and adjacent domains like HRIS, Benefits, and Finance to align technical vision and deliver cohesive solutions.

What You Will Need

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including technical leadership roles driving org-wide impact.
• A strong track record spanning both platform and product engineering: designing distributed systems and building complex, user-facing applications at scale.
• Expertise in system architecture, data modeling, and service design, with an ability to balance long-term vision with iterative delivery.
• Experience operating in high-growth, fast-paced environments where platform primitives and product requirements evolve rapidly.
• Strong technical leadership and mentorship skills, with proven influence across multiple teams and organizations.

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics. Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email View email address on click.appcast.io.

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

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; see which tier applies to your location here. 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.