Staff Software Engineer - Data Cloud Applied ML

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 189,000 - 315,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits package

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to architect the AI platforms within Data Cloud. You will build the intelligence layer for the unified workforce system, focusing on schema retrieval, RL training environments, and scalable model serving.

Collaborate closely with AI Platform, Infrastructure, Security, and Product Engineering to drive architecture and rollout plans. You will lead multi-team initiatives, mentor engineers, and own Data Cloud capabilities that improve quality,

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with distributed systems ownership.
• Experience post-training and deploying LLMs in production environments.
• Experience optimizing model inference at scale with LLMs/embedding models.

Responsibilities

• Develop a state-of-the-art schema retrieval system over Rippling schemas.
• Scale Data Cloud AI training pipelines for data retrieval and training clusters.
• Design RL training environments for structured and unstructured data retrieval.
• Build agent harnesses to enable safe AI features on Data Cloud.
• Optimize model serving and inference for large-scale, GPU-accelerated workloads.
• Collaborate with AI Platform, Infrastructure, Security and Product Engineering on standards and rollout plans.
• Lead technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive multi-team initiatives.

Skills

Distributed systems

LLMs in production

Model inference optimization

Backend development

Tools

Python

Go

Java

Kubernetes

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

Data Cloud is Rippling’s unified data platform that makes operational data across HR, IT, and Finance queryable, governable, and actionable for analytics, reporting, and intelligent product workflows. We’re hiring a Staff Software Engineer to build the AI platforms within Data Cloud. At Rippling, you aren’t just building an AI feature; you are architecting the intelligence layer for the unified workforce system. This is a high-impact platform role focused on building state of the art systems for schema retrieval, query planning, and execution. You will partner closely with Rippling’s AI Platform team to define shared primitives for model tuning, inference, evaluation, and development of task specific agent harnesses, while owning Data Cloud-specific capabilities that improve quality, reliability, and scale.

What You Will Do

• Develop a state of the art schema retrieval system that operates over Rippling native and customer defined schema.
• Implement and scale Data Cloud’s AI training pipelines for data retrieval, from designing data generation to managing training clusters.
• Design and build RL training environments for structured and unstructured data retrieval.
• Develop agent harnesses enabling product teams to safely build AI features on Data Cloud.
• Optimize model serving and inference for scale from GPU level performance to agentic user experiences.
• Partner with AI Platform, Infrastructure, Security, and Product Engineering to drive architecture, standards, and rollout plans.
• Lead technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive execution on multi-team, ambiguous initiatives.

What You Will Need

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including significant ownership of distributed systems in production.
• Experience post training and deploying LLMs in production environments.
• Experience optimizing model inference at scale, particularly with LLMs and embedding models.
• Strong backend engineering skills in one or more languages such as Python, Go, or Java.
• Experience with cloud-native infrastructure (Kubernetes, container orchestration, observability, reliability engineering).
• Ability to drive cross-functional technical strategy and execute through influence across teams.

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

189,000 - 315,000 USD per year(US Tier 1)