Staff Software Engineer, Payroll Calculation & Global Scale

Rippling (Netherlands); New York (NY); On-site; USD 189,000 - 315,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for its Payroll Calculation team in New York. This hands‑on leadership role focuses on designing and scaling payroll systems to be correct, auditable, and scalable as Rippling expands globally.

You’ll set architectural direction, mentor engineers, and collaborate with product, payroll operations, and other tech teams to deliver reliable, compliant payroll at scale.

Qualifications

• Staff-level experience designing and scaling complex production systems where correctness and auditability are critical.
• Strong fundamentals across architecture, data modeling, distributed systems, databases, caching, and reliability.
• Track record of setting technical direction and leading complex initiatives across multiple teams.
• Strong product judgment and the ability to connect platform decisions to customer outcomes.
• Excellent communication skills and comfort driving alignment across engineering, product, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment where priorities and requirements evolve quickly.
• Payroll experience is helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and technical strategy for Rippling’s payroll calculation systems.
• Write critical production code and lead from the front on high-impact technical initiatives.
• Design frameworks that make payroll logic configurable, versioned, testable, explainable, scalable, and easy to debug.
• Leverage AI to make payroll logic easier to build, validate, explain, and operate, without compromising accuracy, auditability, or control.
• Build systems that support enterprise-scale payroll for large employers with complex legal-entity structures and approval workflows.
• Help expand Rippling’s native payroll capabilities across new countries and jurisdictions.
• Drive improvements in distributed systems, database performance, caching, reliability, and operability.
• Partner cross-functionally with product, design, payroll operations, HRIS, and other engineering teams to deliver end-to-end customer outcomes.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers across payroll calculation areas such as platform, earnings, deductions, taxes, and jurisdiction-specific logic.

Skills

Staff-level design

Distributed systems

Architecture

Data modeling

Reliability

Cross-team leadership

Customer outcomes

Communication

Product judgment

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Rippling is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for its Payroll Calculation team in New York. This hands‑on leadership role focuses on designing and scaling payroll systems to be correct, auditable, and scalable as Rippling expands globally.

You’ll set architectural direction, mentor engineers, and collaborate with product, payroll operations, and other tech teams to deliver reliable, compliant payroll at scale.