Staff Software Engineer - PEO

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. Its workforce management platform helps businesses manage employees and contractors and automate the employee lifecycle.

The platform connects payroll, benefits, expenses, computers, and third-party applications through shared workforce data. Its benefits marketplace connects brokers, employers, and employees for discovering, purchasing, and using benefits. The marketplace includes over 100 partners, alongside native benefits products and infrastructure for recommendations, payments, and eligibility.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock.

As Staff Software Engineer - PEO at Rippling, you will own technical direction for PEO systems, making benefits infrastructure scalable and extensible.

Your remit spans architecture renewal and AI-enabled capabilities, with complex business rules shaping the design. It requires hands-on distributed systems engineering and judgment that balances new capabilities with long-term maintainability.

• PEO technical roadmap. Set architecture priorities that support new capabilities and sustained system growth.
• Multi-entity architecture. Design support for businesses with both PEO and non-PEO entities.
• Architecture renewal. Sequence changes that reduce technical debt while preserving delivery momentum.
• AI-enabled capabilities. Shape agentic capabilities alongside the evolution of the benefits and PEO stack.
• Engineering quality standards. Guide design reviews, code quality, and testing across your product.
• Technical mentorship. Help engineers grow their technical judgment and take independent ownership.
• Leadership alignment. Explain architecture decisions and tradeoffs to engineering and business leaders.

• Built distributed systems. You made hands-on design decisions for systems that scaled with product adoption.
• Developed depth in one language. You used that depth to solve difficult problems and deliver production code.
• Renewed architecture while shipping. You reduced technical debt while continuing to deliver customer-facing capabilities.
• Learned unfamiliar systems independently. You traced code and business flows to find where your work could make an impact.
• Changed technical direction. You supported a different engineering approach with concrete evidence and examples.
• Led through production incidents. You coordinated engineers and senior stakeholders while keeping decisions clear.
• Mentored while staying hands-on. You grew engineers' independence while carrying substantial implementation work yourself.

• Investigate the system yourself. Trace code and architecture, using LLMs to support your understanding.
• Connect code to the business. Work with stakeholders to understand the business rules behind technical decisions.
• Make your case with evidence. Bring data and concrete examples when proposing a change in technical direction.
• Deliver useful increments early. Build system understanding through implementation and progressively broader ownership.
• Keep Slack discussions moving. Respond promptly and advance parallel discussions across teams.
• Coordinate across time zones. Plan for occasional extended weekday hours to collaborate with Pacific-time colleagues.
• Improve craft through review. Give specific feedback on designs, code, and tests, and help engineers act independently.

You will shape the architecture behind benefits that support employees through important life decisions. You work with engineers and business leaders on a mandate spanning system renewal and AI-enabled capabilities. The role gives you direct influence over technical direction and engineering practices as the platform scales.