Senior Engineering Manager - Risk Engineering

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

Job summary

Rippling is expanding into a global, multi-product operating system and seeks a Senior Engineering Manager, Risk Engineering to lead the end-to-end horizontal financial risk decisioning platform across all Rippling product lines, including Payments, Corporate Card, Payroll, Spend Management, and Onboarding.

This role builds and operates the central safety and decisioning engine for every dollar moved, balancing real-time sub-second decisioning with high-throughput offline processing, and leads

Qualifications

• Leadership experience leading core platform, infrastructure, or risk engineering teams.
• Distributed systems architecture balancing low-latency real-time evaluation with large-scale offline batch processing.
• Domain expertise in financial technology, fraud mitigation, credit risk, or decisioning engine infrastructure.
• AI models or agentic automation integration into core operational workflows.
• Senior IC management of Staff-level engineers and multi-region engineering organizations.
• Cross-functional collaboration with Product, Finance, and Operations.

Responsibilities

• Direct the unified risk architecture to route 100% of Rippling's payments through a single risk engine.
• Design and scale an in-house no-code rule authoring platform for non-technical stakeholders to author and deploy risk logic.
• Architect and operationalize AI agents that synthesize fraud signals and evaluate risk profiles.
• Recruit, mentor, and lead a senior-heavy team of Staff and Senior Engineers in San Francisco.
• Establish high-velocity cross-functional operating models with extended international engineering pods.

Skills

Leadership

Distributed systems

Domain expertise

AI & agentic systems

Senior IC management

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About Rippling

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @Rippling.com addresses.

About The Role

As Rippling expands into a global, multi-product business operating system, payments sit right at the center of our platform. We are seeking a Senior Engineering Manager, Risk Engineering to lead the end-to-end horizontal financial risk decisioning platform across all Rippling product lines, including Payments, Corporate Card, Payroll, Spend Management, and Onboarding.

This role is responsible for building and operating the central safety and decisioning engine for every dollar moved across the company. The platform handles two core engineering workloads: sub-second real-time decisioning such as during point-of-sale card swipes and payroll risk checks, as well as continuous high-throughput offline batch processing for portfolio credit limit re-evaluations and customer risk scoring.

A primary strategic mandate for this role is leading agentic AI adoption across risk workflows building autonomous AI agents that evaluate complex financial risk profiles and eliminate manual back-office tasks, enabling customer transaction volume to double with zero operations headcount growth.

What You Will Do

• Unified Risk Architecture: Direct the multi-quarter initiative to route 100% of Rippling's payments through a single, unified risk engine.
• No-Code Platform Engineering: Design and scale an in-house, no-code rule authoring platform that enables non-technical stakeholders in Finance, Risk Operations, and Compliance to author, test, and deploy risk logic independently.
• Agentic AI & Automation: Architect and operationalize AI agents capable of synthesizing fraud signals, evaluating financial risk profiles, and executing automated determinations.
• Team Leadership & Development: Recruit, mentor, and lead a senior-heavy team of Staff and Senior Engineers in San Francisco.
• Global Team Scaling: Establish high-velocity cross-functional operating models as extended international engineering pods report into this organizational scope.

What You Will Need

• Leadership Experience: Proven track record as an Engineering Manager leading core platform, infrastructure, or risk engineering teams.
• Distributed Systems Architecture: Strong background in balancing low-latency real-time evaluation systems (sub-second SLAs) with large-scale high-throughput offline batch processing.
• Domain Expertise: Experience in financial technology, fraud mitigation, credit risk, or decisioning engine infrastructure.
• AI & Agentic Systems: Demonstrated experience or strong technical strategy around integrating AI models or agentic automation into core operational workflows.
• Senior IC Management: Experience managing high-caliber Staff-level engineers and building multi-region engineering organizations.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ability to partner closely with Product, Finance, and Operations teams against a balanced risk-appetite model.

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.

The pay range for this role is: 207,000 - 345,000 USD per year(US San Francisco Bay Area)