Documents Platform Lead - Backend & Architecture

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 207,000 - 345,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager for the Documents Platform to lead a team building the core backend platform powering document-centric experiences across Rippling. You will shape APIs, services, data models, and distributed systems that enable document storage, workflows, and signatures for internal products, AI workflows, and external developers.

You will guide architectural decisions, collaborate with product teams, and ensure a scalable, reliable platform with strong

Qualifications

• Significant engineering leadership experience overseeing backend or platform teams.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals with architecture experience.
• Experience operating large-scale platforms, infrastructure, or foundational backend systems.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, databases, data layers, APIs, and scalable service architectures.
• Experience designing abstractions and reusable platform capabilities rather than product-specific solutions.
• Track record of leading technically complex, cross-functional initiatives with broad impact.
• Strong judgment on scalability, reliability, system boundaries, API design, and long-term tradeoffs.
• Ability to move between technical strategy, hands-on architectural leadership, people management, and execution.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Documents Platform team, focusing on scalable backend and platform capabilities.
• Define the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap to make document features a reusable platform primitive.
• Build scalable APIs and backend services for internal product teams, AI workflows, and external developers.
• Evolve document infrastructure into a generalized platform serving multiple product areas.
• Own complex technical decisions about distributed systems, data models, storage, APIs, reliability, and scalability.
• Engage in design and architecture while enabling engineers to execute independently at a high level.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate requirements into durable platform capabilities.
• Create clear abstractions and interfaces to accelerate teams without rebuilding underlying infrastructure.
• Build for long-term scale, extensibility, reliability, and strong developer experience.
• Hire, coach, and develop a high-performing engineering team with high standards.

Skills

Backend leadership

Distributed systems

Architecture design

People management

API design

System design

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical strategy

Job description

Rippling is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager for the Documents Platform to lead a team building the core backend platform powering document-centric experiences across Rippling. You will shape APIs, services, data models, and distributed systems that enable document storage, workflows, and signatures for internal products, AI workflows, and external developers.

You will guide architectural decisions, collaborate with product teams, and ensure a scalable, reliable platform with strong