Staff Software Engineer, Product Risk

Stripe; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 204,000 - 305,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k) plan

Medical/Dental/Vision benefits

Wellness stipends

Job summary

Stripe is seeking aStaff Data Engineer to lead a high-impact data team in Seattle, shaping data pipelines and analytics across Payments, Risk, and Product. You will build scalable data warehouses, guide data architecture decisions, and collaborate with cross-functional partners to unlock insights and drive business impact.

The role emphasizes leadership, autonomy, and a collaborative culture, with a hybrid work model and competitive compensation.

Qualifications

• 10+ years building and operating data systems, pipelines, and warehouses.
• Backend development with Scala, Java, or Go and strong SQL.
• Experience with distributed data frameworks and data quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical outcomes for a team of engineers and mentor them.
• Partner with recruiting to attract and hire top talent.
• Deliver scalable data pipelines focusing on reliability and efficiency.
• Manage SLAs for data pipelines and supporting applications.
• Collaborate with product to create canonical datasets and trustworthy data.
• Leverage AI/LLM to analyze high-quality data at scale.
• Drive end-to-end data initiatives from planning to delivery.
• Foster an inclusive, innovative team environment.

Skills

10+ years experience

SQL

Backend development (Scala/Java/Go)

Airflow

Spark

Kafka

Flink

Data pipelines

Cross-functional collaboration

Leadership

Tools

Iceberg

Kafka

Change Data Capture

Flink

Spark

Airflow

Hive Metastore

Pinot

Trino

AWS

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.

Who we are

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

Product and Risk Data Engineering is Stripe's single source of truth data engineering layer for Payments, Risk, and Product - we enable Stripe to confidently run, measure, and grow the business by making accurate information easy to access. We curate and maintain high-quality data warehouses and pipelines that serve as the authoritative foundation for product and financial activity across Stripe, powering analytics, ML capabilities, agentic workflows, and merchant-facing data interfaces. Beyond building data, we act as the internal experts in data technologies and partner with Data Platform to deliver high-quality, low-friction data processing frameworks. We also serve as the bridge between data producers and data consumers - championing best-in-class data engineering practices and guiding product teams on event-driven data API modeling - so that every team at Stripe can build, decide, and grow from a trusted, well-engineered data foundation.

What you’ll do

We’re looking for a person who could contribute to the team by solving high-impact, cutting-edge data problems. The ideal candidate will be someone that has built data pipelines for large scale volume, is deeply knowledgeable of key tools including Airflow/Spark/Kafka/Flink, is empathetic, excels at building strong relationships, and collaborates effectively with other Stripe teams to understand their use cases and unlock new capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical outcomes for a team of ambitious, talented engineers, providing mentorship, guidance, and support to ensure their success
• Partner with our recruiting team to attract and hire top talent
• Deliver cutting-edge data pipelines that scale to users’ needs, focusing on reliability and efficiency
• Develop strong subject matter expertise and manage the SLAs of data pipelines and full stack web applications that support critical stakeholders
• Collaborate with product managers and peers across the company to create/improve canonical datasets and data warehouses, use golden paths, and ensure Stripes and customers are using trustworthy data
• Leverage AI/LLM and Agents at scale to produce and analyze high-quality data on ambiguous problems
• Have the opportunity to drive the execution of key data initiatives for Stripe, overseeing the entire development lifecycle from planning to delivery while maintaining high standards of quality and timely completion
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment, promoting innovation, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement within the team

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

• This is a Staff-level role — that typically means 10+ years of experience building and operating data systems, pipelines, warehouses, infrastructure, and leading teams to deliver exceptional solutions
• A strong engineering background and passion for data as well as prior experience with writing and debugging data pipelines using a distributed data framework
• An inquisitive nature in diving into data inconsistencies to pinpoint issues, and resolve deep rooted data quality issues
• Knowledge of a backend development language (such as Scala, Java, or Go) and strong SQL experience
• Extreme customer focus, with a commitment to partnering with product, leaders across the business, and other Stripe engineers to understand their use cases
• Effective cross-functional collaboration, with the ability to think rigorously, communicate clearly, and make or coordinate difficult decisions and trade-offs
• Thrive with high autonomy and responsibility in an ambiguous environment
• Ability to foster and work in a healthy, inclusive, challenging, and supportive work environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Our stack is made up of Iceberg, Kafka, Change Data Capture, Flink, Spark, Airflow, Hive Metastore, Pinot, Trino, and AWS Cloud - experience with all or some of these tools is a huge plus
• Influencing open-source contributions
• Experience creating and maintaining data marts / warehouses to power business reporting needs
• Experience collaborating with Product, Go-To-Market, or Sales / Marketing teams
• Genuine enjoyment of innovation and a deep interest in understanding how things work, with the ability to question and direct architectural decisions
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for various audiences, including leadership, users, and company-wide

Hybrid work at Stripe

This role is available either in an office or a remote location (35+ miles or 56+ km from a Stripe office).

In-office expectations

Office-assigned Stripes spend at least 50% of the time in a given month in their local office or with users. This hits a balance between bringing people together for in-person collaboration and learning from each other, while supporting flexibility about how to do this in a way that makes sense for individuals and their teams.

Working remotely at Stripe

A remote location is defined as being 35 miles (56 kilometers) or more from one of our offices. While you would be welcome to come into the office for team/business meetings, on‑sites, meet‑ups, and events, our expectation is you would regularly work from home rather than a Stripe office. Stripe does not cover the cost of relocating to a remote location. We encourage you to apply for roles that match the location where you currently live or plan to live.

Pay and benefits

The annual US base salary range for this role is $203,600 - $305,400. 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’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.