PayPal · 3 months ago
Principal Software Engineer, Developer Platforms
San Jose, California, United States of America
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$188K/yr - $324K/yr
15+ years expPayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. The Developer Platforms Engineering team focuses on enabling engineering teams to build, deploy, and manage their applications with improved velocity, reliability, and scalability. The role involves driving the vision for Developer Experience of DevOps Tools and serving as a key bridge across various engineering teams to foster a high-impact engineering culture.
E-Commerce PlatformsFinTechMobile PaymentsTransaction Processing
Responsibilities
Increases results & effectiveness of all software engineers in a large domain
Sets the technology roadmap for a domain
Adapts their role to the need, selecting the most effective means of realizing their technical goals
Provides advice and counsel to senior executives within PayPal, influencing the development of multi-year business strategies
Exercises wide latitude in determining objectives and approaches to assignments and takes initiative to achieve results
Handles ambiguous and unfamiliar situations and uses creativity to deliver decisive resolutions
Uses discovery & exploratory research, not being limited to technical domains, to make successful decisions
Identifies themes & trends that span projects and teams, and finds broadly impactful opportunities for improvement
Uses professional savvy to determine when industry-standard solutions can be adopted, versus when a problem space warrants a novel solution (“build/buy”)
Mentor others as a means of propagating technical influence, and to enhance the performance of their organization
Champion developer-centric practices across PayPal’s engineering organization while managing technical debt related to CI/CD, test environments, and developer portals
Serve as a thought leader advocating for engineering best practices for Developer Platforms
Guide the team in architecture reviews, including High-Level Designs (HLDs) and Architectural Decision Records (ADRs)
Guide teams dealing with incident management, RCA processes, and overarching developer ecosystem strategies
Partner with the DevOps Leadership team and engineers to foster collaboration, eliminate inefficiencies, and reduce duplicate efforts
Mentor teams on scalable development strategies and foster a culture of engineering excellence and innovation
Distill complex technical concepts into clear, actionable insights for stakeholders across technical and non-technical domains
Drive enhancements in CI/CD environments with tools like Harness (current), Jenkins (legacy), GitHub EMU, and JFROG Artifactory
Build and enhance internal developer portals, consolidating workflows and orchestrating developer environments such as staging and sandbox layers
Explore AI and ML-enabled technologies for code analysis, test automation, and developer productivity insights
Qualification
Required
Minimum of 15 years of relevant work experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
12+ years of experience in development, infrastructure, or cloud architecture roles, with at least 5 years focused on Developer Platforms or Developer Productivity Engineering
Strong understanding of systems design, enterprise architecture principles, distributed systems, and developer-centric environments
Proven experience with modern CI/CD architectures, developer environment tooling, and internal developer platform solutions like Harness, Jenkins, and GitHub EMU
Experience with developer environments such as test and staging systems, load balancing strategies, and monitoring systems for developer success
Ability to drive technical strategy, governance frameworks, and architectural decision-making with a focus on developer productivity
Strong problem-solving skills, particularly in high-availability and mission-critical environments
Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management abilities
Preferred
Familiarity with AI capabilities to augment developer platforms and productivity strategies is a plus
Benefits
Flexible work environment
Employee shares options
Health and life insurance
Company
PayPal
PayPal is a financial service company that provides online payment solutions to its users worldwide.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
PayPal has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (1144)
2024 (917)
2023 (775)
2022 (921)
2021 (1051)
2020 (1049)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$12.17BKey Investors
Kohlberg Kravis RobertsBlueRun Ventures
2025-11-17Post Ipo Debt· $6.95B
2023-06-07Post Ipo Debt· $5B
2015-07-20IPO
Leadership Team
Simon Bladon
PayPal UK CEO
chaloem khompitoon
President & CEO
Recent News
Financial Sector Technology
2026-01-11
Digital Trends
2026-01-11
Company data provided by crunchbase