Senior Backend Engineer, AI Platform & Automation

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Backend for Rippling AI in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will own end-to-end backend design and build scalable AI-driven workflows across Rippling's platform.

Operate with engineers across product, infra, and platform teams; mentor juniors; contribute to architecture decisions as AI surfaces evolve. Strong distributed-systems and coding skills are essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with a proven track record of owning and delivering complex technical projects.
• Experience with platform and distributed systems engineering - built reliable, observable, large-scale systems.
• Strong hands-on coding skills; active, high-output contributor in the codebase.
• Experience driving technical initiatives end-to-end across teams to deliver outcomes.
• Strong product instincts - translate ambiguous problems into durable platform capabilities and partner with product teams.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end technical design and implementation for high-impact AI platform initiatives from design through production.
• Collaborate closely with engineers across product, infra, and platform organizations.
• Build scalable agent infrastructure that automates repetitive, high-frequency workflows across Rippling's product surface.
• Design systems that are observable, self-correcting, and capable of improving over time with minimal human intervention.
• Develop harness and platform capabilities that encode business logic and institutional knowledge into reliable, automated workflows.
• Partner closely with Product to ensure AI-powered surfaces are trustworthy, controllable, and intuitive for end users and admins.
• Mentor junior engineers, contribute to best practices for AI platform development, and raise the technical bar on your team.
• Track the frontier, translate model capability improvements into architectural decisions and move quickly when new approaches unlock better outcomes.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend development

Collaboration

Code craftsmanship

Mentoring

Job description

Rippling is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Backend for Rippling AI in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will own end-to-end backend design and build scalable AI-driven workflows across Rippling's platform.

Operate with engineers across product, infra, and platform teams; mentor juniors; contribute to architecture decisions as AI surfaces evolve. Strong distributed-systems and coding skills are essential.