Staff Software Engineer - Variable Compensation

Job description

About the Team The Variable Compensation (VC) team at Rippling is on a mission to revolutionize how organizations design, manage, and distribute performance-based pay. As an agile team we operate at the dynamic intersection of Finance,HR and Artificial Intelligence. We are spearheading an AI-first product, navigating highly ambiguous, evolving requirements to build a seamless, intuitive, and highly scalable compensation platform from the ground up. The team is structured into four key focus areas: Compensation Engine – Build the foundational system that powers dynamic pay rules and performance metrics, designed with the flexibility to support a wide range of custom compensation structures. Payment Orchestration – Design world class payment orchestrators and ledgers that support a wide range of use cases . AI-First Design & Explainability – Leverage artificial intelligence to assist customers with plan design, setup, and administration, while building a robust "Explainability Layer" that gives employees a clear, 360-degree view of how their payouts are calculated. Few Technical Challenges We Solve Scale : Build systems that can scale and process millions of payouts across thousands of unique and complex compensation plans. Infinite Flexibility: Build a rules engine capable of supporting the vast, complex, and highly customized ways different companies pay their people Resilience and Accuracy : Build financial systems that are 100% correct. Design systems that can adapt to increasing complexity without compromising performance or accuracy. Pioneering AI Integration: Design and build natively AI-driven architecture from scratch. We are translating highly ambiguous, unstructured compensation philosophies into deterministic, executable code using intelligent automation. About the Role This role at Variable Compensation Team is a great opportunity to be a key technical leader at Rippling with high visibility and growth opportunities. The successful candidate will be responsible for leading the development and delivery of Rippling's finance platform. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to architect scalable systems, enhance existing features, and drive innovation in our product offerings, ensuring the successful delivery of high-quality, scalable, and reliable financial services to our customers. What you’ll do Architect and Lead: Design, develop, and maintain internet-scale, highly distributed systems and scalable services for the Rippling HRIS team. Hands-On Coding: Actively participate in coding and code reviews, using languages such as Python, Golang, and Java. Technical Leadership: Provide visionary technical leadership, setting the direction for engineering best practices and the adoption of advanced technologies. Mentorship: Mentor and support engineers across the organization, fostering a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and technical excellence. System Design: Architect systems capable of handling millions of users simultaneously, ensuring high performance, reliability, and scalability. API Development: Design and implement clean, modularized abstraction APIs and programmatic APIs for both end users and engineers, including Backend for Frontend (BFF) systems. Storage Solutions: Design and implement Analytical systems that encompass both analytical (e.g., Presto, S3, Snowflake) and transactional (e.g., MySQL, Aurora, MongoDB) systems. They should be able to handle petabyte scale Resiliency and SLAs: Develop and maintain systems with high availability and reliability, targeting four or five 9s (99.99% or 99.999%) uptime. Observability: Implement comprehensive observability practices, including monitoring, logging, and tracing, to ensure system health and performance. Streaming and Workflow Systems: Build and integrate streaming solutions (e.g., Spark Streaming, Apache Flink, Kafka Connect) and workflow systems for both transactional and analytical workflows. Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product management, data science, and operations, to align on strategic goals and ensure successful project delivery. Innovation: Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies, driving innovation and continuous improvement within the Rippling HRIS team. Documentation and Standards: Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation and standards for system architecture, design, and operational processes. Qualifications Experience: 9+ years of experience in software engineering, with a significant focus on building large-scale distributed systems and scalable services. Technical Expertise: Proficient in coding with languages such as Python, Golang, and Java. Deep understanding of distributed computing principles, data architecture, and scalable system design. Leadership: Demonstrated experience in technical leadership roles, with a proven track record of mentoring and developing engineering teams. Systems Expertise: Extensive experience in building systems handling millions of users in parallel and developing scalable services. Deep understanding of SLAs, system resiliency, and observability. API Development: Expertise in designing and implementing clean, modularized abstraction APIs and programmatic APIs, including BFF for front-end systems. Storage Systems: Expertise in both analytical (e.g., Presto, S3, Snowflake) and transactional (e.g., MySQL, Aurora, MongoDB) storage systems. Cloud and Streaming: Experience with public cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, S3) and streaming technologies (e.g., Spark Streaming, Apache Flink, Kafka Connect). Workflow Systems: Understanding of both transactional and analytical workflow systems. Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to diverse audiences. Experienced in integrating AI-assisted workflows (e.g., Claude, Cursor) into day-to-day development to improve velocity and engineering outcomes Ability to quickly understand and navigate large, complex codebases, and independently drive solutions for ambiguous or evolving requirements. Why Join Us This team is ideal for engineers who want to go beyond just building features - those who want to deeply understand the financial domain and develop robust, scalable systems that drive real-world impact. You'll get to work at the crossroads of Finance, Risk, Compliance, KYC, and Accounting, gaining deep domain expertise while solving high-impact technical problems. If you're excited about becoming a “ Real Finance Engineer ”, blending product thinking with core infrastructure, this is the team for you. 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 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 40 mile 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 About Rippling Rippling is the first way for businesses to manage all of their HR & IT—payroll, benefits, computers, apps, and more—in one unified workforce platform. By connecting every business system to one source of truth for employee data, businesses can automate all of the manual work they normally need to do to make employee changes. Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can just click a button and set up a new employees’ payroll, health insurance, work computer, and third-party apps—like Slack, Zoom, and Office 365—all within 90 seconds. Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.8B from the world's top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Bedrock, and Greenoaks—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes (#12 out of 500)