Staff Software Engineer - Travel Platform

Rippling; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling's Tax Platform handles billions in tax calculations across 4,000+ jurisdictions. We seek a Staff Software Engineer to drive architectural decisions, set engineering standards, and shape the future of our scalable tax infrastructure.

You will lead design for distributed systems, own delivery across teams, and ensure correctness, reliability, and auditability as we grow globally.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering with leadership in large-scale systems.
• Architect large distributed systems with reliability requirements.
• Deep expertise in object-oriented programming languages.
• Track record of influencing multiple teams and roadmaps.
• Ownership mindset from problem identification to resolution.
• Strong engineering practices emphasizing correctness and testing.
• Excellent communication with stakeholders and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture for mission-critical systems handling billions in tax calculations; scale platform for 50% YoY growth.
• Own initiatives with cross-team visibility; shape roadmaps and strategy.
• Define and champion engineering standards across teams for scalable patterns.
• Design systems with high reliability, auditability, and graceful degradation.
• Tackle global scale challenges across multiple countries and jurisdictions.
• Be the technical voice in cross-functional decisions translating business needs to strategy.

Skills

Architecture leadership

Distributed systems

OOP languages

Technical strategy

Ownership mindset

Engineering excellence

Communication skills

Job description

About Rippling

Rippling is the first way for businesses to manage all of their HR & IT—payroll, benefits, computers, apps, and more in one unified workforce platform. By connecting every business system to one source of truth for employee data, businesses can automate all of the manual work they normally need to do to make employee changes. Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can just click a button and set up a new employees’ payroll, health insurance, work computer, and third-party apps—like Slack, Zoom, and Office 365—all within 90 seconds. Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.8B from the world's top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Bedrock, and Greenoaks—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes (#12 out of 500)

About Role

Rippling's Tax Platform is one of only ~5 companies globally that owns the full tax calculation and filing stack. We process over $30 billion in annual payroll for 1 million+ employees—growing 50% year-over-year. Our systems handle millions of payroll transactions across multiple countries, ensuring tax correctness across 4,000+ jurisdictions while staying compliant with constantly changing tax regulations.

We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead technical strategy, drive architectural decisions, and shape the future of our tax infrastructure. You'll have function-wide impact and set the standard for engineering excellence across teams.

What You Will Do

• System Design: Lead architecture for mission-critical systems handling billions in tax calculations; make decisions that define how the platform scales for 50% YoY growth
• Ownership & Impact: Drive initiatives with function-wide visibility; your work shapes roadmaps and influences company strategy
• Engineering Excellence: Define and champion engineering standards across teams; establish patterns that scale with the organization
• Reliability & Correctness: Design systems where failure is not an option; build for auditability, correctness, and graceful degradation at scale
• Global Scale: Tackle architectural challenges of processing millions of payroll transactions across multiple countries with 4,000+ jurisdictions and evolving regulations
• Technical Leadership: Be the technical voice in cross-functional decisions; translate business needs into technical strategy

What You Will Have

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with demonstrated technical leadership
• Proven ability to architect large-scale distributed systems with high reliability requirements
• Deep expertise in any OOPs language and experience designing systems that other engineers build on
• Track record of driving technical strategy and influencing decisions across multiple teams
• Strong ownership mindset—you see problems through from identification to resolution
• Rigorous engineering practices with a focus on correctness, testing, and operational excellence
• Excellent communication skills; ability to represent engineering to leadership and stakeholders