Senior Engineering Manager - Payroll Platform

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager for the Payroll Platform to lead a high-impact engineering team building the foundational platform for payroll processing, approvals, corrections, and more. You will guide scale, reliability, and orchestration while shaping the product's technical direction and attracting top talent.

The role emphasizes platform leadership over consumer features, collaboration across org pods, and delivering robust, scalable backend systems in a cloud environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in a senior leadership capacity.
• Deep expertise in backend systems and orchestration patterns.

Responsibilities

• Architect for Scale: lead backend strategy for Run Management engine.
• Orchestrate Complexity: manage raw HR inputs to the calculation engine for accurate outputs.
• Drive Platform Excellence: focus on systems design, reliability, and backend efficiency.
• Collaborate Across Charters: bridge Onboarding and Payroll Processing to serve Run Management.

Skills

Backend systems

Leadership

Distributed systems

Cloud infrastructure

Coaching managers

Communication

Job description

About the role

As the Senior Engineering Manager for the Payroll Platform team, you’ll lead a high-impact engineering team for building the foundational platform within payroll organization that enable and support critical flows around payroll processing, approvals, corrections and many more.

In addition, this role will have a significant impact on Rippling’s growth and success, and make technical and business decisions which will shape the future of the product and company. We are looking for someone who takes immense pride in building excellent scalable products, building winning teams and being able to rally these towards a vision, and can attract and retain top talent.

What You’ll Do

• Architect for Scale: Lead the predominant backend strategy to evolve the Run Management engine, ensuring it can handle massive data throughput and complex orchestration logic.
• Orchestrate Complexity: Manage the flow of raw HR inputs into the calculation engine, ensuring the “end-to-end tail engine” produces accurate, reliable outputs for high-stakes financial processes.
• Drive Platform Excellence: Operate as a pure platform leader. You will focus on systems design, infrastructure reliability, and backend efficiency rather than traditional consumer-facing product features.
• Collaborate Across Charters: Act as a strong communicator and bridge between the Onboarding and Payroll Processing pods, ensuring the Run Management layer serves as a seamless interface.

Who You Are

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5+ years in a senior leadership capacity.
• Scale Veteran: You understand the nuances of high-concurrency systems and distributed platform architecture.
• Infrastructure Mindset: You have a background in building robust systems on top of cloud infrastructure and have ideally managed data platform or infrastructure-heavy teams.
• Leader of Leaders: You have significant experience coaching and developing Engineering Managers, not just individual contributors.
• Backend Specialist: You possess deep technical expertise in backend systems and orchestration patterns.
• Strong Communicator: You can navigate a complex organizational structure, managing multiple charters and stakeholders with clarity and precision.

Additional Information

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 [e-mail]

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.