Job Description

About Rippling

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.


Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365--all within 90 seconds.


Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.85B+ from the world's top investors--including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock--and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.


We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @Rippling.com addresses.

About Rippling Payroll

Rippling Payroll is redefining how companies pay their people across the world -- turning payroll from a cost center into a strategic advantage. Built on Rippling Unity -- our unified workforce platform -- Payroll connects HR, IT, and Finance so every policy, approval, and pay calculation automatically stays in sync across systems and countries.


With $750M+ ARR, >23,000 customers, and >$70B in annualized payroll volume, we're building the most intelligent, automated, and compliant payroll infrastructure on the planet.

The Opportunity

We're looking for a

Principal Engineer (P10)

to help architect and scale Rippling's

next-generation Global Payroll Platform

-- a system that powers payments, compliance, and computation for millions of employees across 50+ countries.


This role sits at the intersection of

AI-powered automation

,

compliance-as-code

, and

massive scale

-- with direct ownership over core systems that define how Rippling processes global payroll, taxes, and payments at sub-second latency and near-zero error tolerance.

What You'll Own

Architect Rippling's next-gen Payroll computation engine

-- modular, extensible, and capable of encoding multi-jurisdictional compliance logic declaratively.

Design data models and pipelines

that handle versioned pay runs, audit trails, retroactive corrections, and time-based computations at global scale.

Build scalable rules engines

to automate ever-changing tax, benefits, and labor laws across jurisdictions, ensuring compliance through dynamic, AI-generated logic.

Modernize global payment infrastructure

for real-time or near-instant disbursements while balancing reconciliation, fraud detection, and regulatory constraints.

Evolve reporting and permissions systems

to deliver real-time insights and granular access controls for complex, multi-entity organizations.

Partner with Product, Compliance, and Finance

teams to convert ambiguous regulatory specs into clear, deterministic system behavior.

Lead high-impact initiatives

like sandboxed "simulation" payrolls, AI-powered paystub explainability, and what-if analysis for enterprises.

Shape the long-term platform vision

, influencing 150+ engineers across Finance and HR Infrastructure as a multiplier, mentor, and architectural authority.

What Success Looks Like

System Reliability:

Sub-second computation accuracy for global pay runs, with zero critical compliance defects.

Extensibility:

New countries, pay types, and tax rules added with minimal engineering overhead.

Performance:

Orders of magnitude improvement in latency and cost efficiency across distributed computation.

Developer Velocity:

Simplified APIs, testing frameworks, and onboarding for internal and partner developers.

Business Impact:

Reduction in country onboarding time, payroll failure rates, and manual compliance interventions.

What We're Looking For

18+ years of experience building large-scale distributed systems in high-compliance or high-integrity domains (Finance, Payroll, Tax, Insurance, etc.). Deep expertise in

data architecture

,

domain-driven design

, and

rule-based / event-driven systems

. Experience scaling

compliance-heavy, multi-country systems

-- ideally payroll, tax, or financial computation platforms. Proficiency in designing

modular service boundaries

, ensuring backward compatibility and auditability. Strong understanding of

computation correctness

,

versioned state

,

precision handling

, and

retroactive adjustments

. Proven ability to partner across functions -- translating legal/compliance constraints into elegant, maintainable systems. A strong architectural voice who can both design systems and mentor teamsto scale them sustainably.

Bonus Points

Experience with

AI-driven system automation

or

compliance-as-code

frameworks. Hands-on work with

global payroll systems

,

real-time payments

, or

statutory tax logic

. Familiarity with

event sourcing

,

CQRS

,

streaming pipelines

, and

immutable data stores

. Contributions to open-source distributed computation frameworks or rule engines.

Why Rippling

Backed by

world-class investors (Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Bedrock, GIC, Elad Gil, Goldman Sachs)

Valued among the

fastest-growing SaaS companies

in history Build at the heart of Rippling's

Finance platform

, where Payroll, Spend, Bill Pay, and Banking converge into a unified ecosystem. * Join a team that

pushes the limits of possible

,

builds winning systems, and moves fast with conviction.