Senior Staff Engineer, Big Data Infrastructure

Stripe; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 271,000 - 407,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k)

Medical, dental, vision benefits

Wellness stipends

Job summary

Stripe, Inc. in Seattle seeks a Senior Staff leader for the Big Data Infrastructure team to guide a 40+ engineering group and scale critical data systems.

You will spearhead modernization, including YARN to Kubernetes migrations, and advance data work across data platforms powering payments and underwriting. You will collaborate with Data Foundations, Payins Engineering, and AI/ML Foundations to build invisible infrastructure for AI agents, improving availability while reducing KTLO and driving

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science or related field.
• 12+ years of professional software development experience.
• Strong background in distributed infrastructure and/or platform services.
• Experience leading cross-team projects with minimal downtime.
• Proven ability to optimize reliability and security of distributed systems.
• Experience driving operational excellence with metrics, alerts & dashboards.

Responsibilities

• Lead a 40+ person engineering team to scale foundational data systems.
• Modernize tech stack and drive Stripe's Agentic Era data pipelines.
• Oversee migrations (YARN to Kubernetes) and data catalog modernization.
• Implement multi-region, multi-cloud data strategy for availability.
• Reduce KTLO from >40% to <10% by platform-centric fixes.
• Mentor engineers across career levels toward Staff+.

Skills

Distributed infra

Leadership

Operational excellence

Cross-team collaboration

AI-led architecture

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science

Tools

Spark

Iceberg

Airflow

YARN

Kubernetes

S3

Azure Blob Storage

Multi-cloud data platforms

Job description

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone’s reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About The Team

In this role, you’d be joining the Big Data Infrastructure team. Our team builds and maintains the platforms that power data work across Stripe, managing three core layers:

• Data Orchestration (Airflow)
• Batch Compute (Spark, Celeborn)
• Data Lake (Iceberg, Hive, S3, Azure Blob Storage)

We support over 2,000 engineers and 600+ internal teams, processing workloads that organically grow more than 30% year over year. Our infrastructure handles massive scale, managing over 800 PB of data, running 325,000 applications a day, and accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in annual spend, directly powering critical pipelines like inbound payments, network reconciliation, and capital underwriting.

What you’ll do

As the technical leader for the Big Data Infrastructure organization, you will guide a 40+ person engineering team to scale our foundational data systems. You will partner closely with major internal customers like Data Foundations, Payins Engineering, and AI/ML Foundations to modernize our tech stack and execute Stripe's transition to the "Agentic Era" - building "invisible infrastructure" where AI agents operate data pipelines end-to-end.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical leader for the Big Data Infrastructure organization, overseeing distributed systems that manage 20% of Stripe's total AWS spend
• Execute Stripe's transition to the "Agentic Era" by building invisible infrastructure that empowers AI agents to author, validate, ship, and operate data pipelines
• Drive the architecture and delivery of critical modernization bets, including YARN to Kubernetes migrations, native vectorization (Gluten/Velox), and Airflow and Data Catalog modernization
• Lead the implementation of a multi-region and multi-cloud data strategy for high availability, disaster recovery, and Azure Blob Storage compliance
• Reduce operational burden and maintenance overhead (KTLO) from over 40% to under 10% by shifting fixes into the platform instead of relying on runbooks
• Foster a culture of operational excellence and mentor engineers at various stages in their careers, up to Staff+

Who you are

We’re looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum Requirements

• BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field
• This is a Senior Staff role, so ideally 12+ years of professional experience in a software development role
• A strong engineering background in distributed infrastructure and/or platform services, including one or more of the following: storage, databases, or compute
• Experience leading projects on a cross-team and company-wide scale, including scaling and migrating systems with little to no downtime
• Experience developing, maintaining, and debugging distributed systems while optimizing their reliability and security
• Experience driving a culture of operational excellence, with a deep understanding of metrics, alerts, and dashboards

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience driving AI-led architectural transformations and integrating agentic workflows into large-scale data systems
• Experience in a development team at AWS, Azure, OCI, or Google
• Experience with big data infrastructure at scale, such as Spark, Iceberg, S3, Airflow, YARN, and Celeborn
• Experience with database internals and/or with Kubernetes

In-office expectations

Office-assigned Stripes in most of our locations are currently expected to spend at least 50% of the time in a given month in their local office or with users. This expectation may vary depending on role, team and location. For example, Stripes in Stripe Delivery Center roles in Mexico City, Mexico, Bengaluru, India, and Dublin, Ireland work 100% from the office. Also, some teams have greater in-office attendance requirements, to appropriately support our users and workflows, which the hiring manager will discuss. This approach helps strike a balance between bringing people together for in-person collaboration and learning from each other, while supporting flexibility when possible.

Pay and benefits

The annual US base salary range for this role is $271,200 - $406,800. For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Stripe and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors, including the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and location. Applicants interested in this role and who are not located in the US may request the annual salary range for their location during the interview process.

Additional benefits for this role may include: equity, company bonus or sales commissions/bonuses; 401(k) plan; medical, dental, and vision benefits; and wellness stipends.

We look forward to hearing from you.

At Stripe, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions. Join us.

At Stripe, we're looking for people with passion, grit, and integrity. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. Your skills and passion will stand out—and set you apart—especially if your career has taken some extraordinary twists and turns. At Stripe, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions. Join us.