Staff Engineer, Payroll Foundations — Lead Core Payroll Systems

Personio; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive reward package including salary and pre-IPO equity

28 days of paid vacation

Fully paid Impact Day

Generous family leave and mental health support

Regular team events and healthy office snacks

Job summary

Personio is looking for a Staff Engineer for Payroll Foundations to establish technical direction and ensure payroll processing systems are accurate and reliable. With an emphasis on simplicity and operational excellence, this role requires hands-on technical leadership and collaboration across teams.

Located in London, the position allows for 2 days in-office work per week, with additional flexibility. Benefits include competitive pay, 28 vacation days, and employee support programs.

Qualifications

• Strong track record architecting and delivering complex backend systems in production.
• Demonstrated experience designing reliable services with high correctness requirements.
• Deep experience in languages such as Kotlin, Java, or similar.

Responsibilities

• Define the architecture and patterns for payroll processing systems.
• Find simple and robust solutions for correctness and performance challenges.
• Lead long-running technical efforts within the payroll domain.
• Ensure accurate processing of payroll data across the platform.
• Set standards for the reliability and maintainability of payroll backend services.
• Collaborate with product managers to provide well-integrated systems.
• Mentor senior engineers and elevate technical standards.

Skills

Backend and distributed systems expertise

Correctness-critical experience

Strong programming foundations

Architectural judgement with a bias for simplicity

Hands-on delivery

Cross-team technical leadership

Coaching and influence

Job description

Personio is looking for a Staff Engineer for Payroll Foundations to establish technical direction and ensure payroll processing systems are accurate and reliable. With an emphasis on simplicity and operational excellence, this role requires hands-on technical leadership and collaboration across teams.

Located in London, the position allows for 2 days in-office work per week, with additional flexibility. Benefits include competitive pay, 28 vacation days, and employee support programs.