Staff Software Engineer - Ledger

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to anchor our Money Movement & Treasury architecture hub in Seattle. You will own the design and implementation of our deterministic ledger architecture, ensuring 100% ledger coverage for tax and payment liabilities.

You will mentor a pod of Senior engineers, collaborate with Payments Data, Tax, and Accounting teams, and drive cross-functional execution to replace legacy reconciliation logic with a replay/testing framework.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience designing large-scale fault-tolerant systems.
• Ability to operate with ambiguity and own problems from scope to delivery.
• Proficiency in a modern backend language (Python/Go/Java) and data modeling (SQL/NoSQL).

Responsibilities

• Architect the Foundation: redesign General Ledger and reconciliation systems to be deterministic.
• Unify the Abstraction: create universal primitives across payment systems for a single dollar lifecycle.
• Build the Engine: develop a reconciliation replay and testing framework with Payments Data team.
• Technical Leadership: anchor the Seattle site and mentor senior engineers to build a decoupled execution layer.
• Cross Functional Execution: collaborate with Payments Data, Tax, and Accounting teams to meet ledger, tax, and reporting requirements.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

Leadership

Problem solving

Job description

About the role

Rippling processes multi-billions of dollars in annual transaction volume, serving as the financial engine for businesses worldwide. As a Staff Engineer on the broader Financial Services team, you will join a lean, high-impact group responsible for the architecture that moves this money.

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to anchor our new Money Movement & Treasury architecture hub in Seattle. You will own the design and implementation of our deterministic, config-driven, and incrementally testable ledger architecture. You will be the technical authority ensuring 100% ledger coverage to act as the final guardrail for all tax and payment liabilities.

What you will do

• Architect the Foundation: Redesign our General Ledger and reconciliation systems to eliminate silent failures and to be deterministic.
• Unify the Abstraction: Establish universal primitives across various historically disjointed payment systems to create a single, queryable lifecycle for every dollar moving through our platform.
• Build the Engine: Develop a reconciliation replay and testing framework, working closely with the payments data team to replace legacy Snowflake-side recon logic.
• Technical Leadership: Anchor the Seattle site, mentoring a pod of high-performing Senior engineers to build an execution layer decoupled from product feature velocity.
• Cross Functional Execution: The engineer will work closely and collaborate with the Payments Data, Tax, and Accounting team to understand ledger, tax liability, accounting and regulatory reporting requirements, and to replace legacy Snowflake-side reconciliation logic by developing a reconciliation replay and testing framework.

What you will need

• Experience: 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong track record in backend development and distributed systems.
• Architecture: Proven ability to design large-scale, fault-tolerant systems from scratch. You understand the trade-offs between consistency and availability and know when "eventual consistency" is not enough.
• High Agency: You thrive in ambiguity. You don't wait for a ticket to be assigned; you identify the business problem, scope the technical solution, and execute.
• Domain Agility: You have the intellectual curiosity to master the complex domain of treasury and money movement in a matter of days, even if you don't have a background in it.
• Tech Stack: Deep proficiency in a modern backend language (Python, Go, Java, etc.) plus experience with complex data modeling (SQL/NoSQL) and data processing framework (Spark/Flink).

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.