Senior Engineering Manager, Platform & Data Modeling

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead a team focused on large-scale backend platforms and distributed systems. You will shape platform architecture, data modeling, and developer tooling across Rippling’s Universal Objects initiative.

You will mentor engineers, influence cross-functional initiatives, and balance long-term platform investments with immediate product needs to empower hundreds of engineers and millions of end users.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering with backend or distributed systems experience.
• 4+ years leading high-performing engineering teams.
• Experience building foundational platforms used by engineers.
• Strong data modeling, metadata systems, or systems-of-record knowledge.
• Experience operating and scaling highly available distributed systems.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives across orgs.
• Excellent architectural judgment and long-term planning.
• Proven hiring, mentoring and retention skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a high-performing platform infrastructure team.
• Define technical strategy and roadmap for core platform capabilities.
• Evolve Universal Objects framework powering transactional data.
• Partner with engineering leaders to unlock leverage for engineers.
• Deliver scalable, reliable systems for workflows, reporting, and integrations.
• Improve developer productivity with platform abstractions and tooling.
• Maintain high standards for reliability, scalability, and ops.
• Mentor engineers and engineering leaders with ownership and rigor.
• Influence long-term architectural decisions across data and platform ecosystems.

Skills

Foundational platform experience

Distributed systems

Leadership

Data modeling

Architectural judgment

Cross-functional collaboration

Hiring & mentoring

Communication

Tools

Backend frameworks

Job description

Rippling is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead a team focused on large-scale backend platforms and distributed systems. You will shape platform architecture, data modeling, and developer tooling across Rippling’s Universal Objects initiative.

You will mentor engineers, influence cross-functional initiatives, and balance long-term platform investments with immediate product needs to empower hundreds of engineers and millions of end users.