Rippling · 6 hours ago
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Query and Data Platform
Seattle, WA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$207K/yr - $362K/yr
12+ years expRippling is a company that integrates HR, IT, and Finance systems for businesses. They are seeking a Senior Staff Engineer for their Query and Data Platform team to lead the architectural vision and enhance their data infrastructure, focusing on performance, scalability, and collaboration with AI initiatives.
EmploymentHuman Resources
Responsibilities
Architect the Future of RQL: Own the grammar, parser, and compiler layer of RQL. You will expand its expressive power to ensure that Rippling’s AI can leverage structured queries to provide authoritative, provable answers without hallucinations
Drive Platform Maturation: Lead the strategic shift from "tactical execution" to "platform excellence," designing systems for long-term reliability, scalability, and performance
Optimize at Scale: Take accountability for performance and cost-efficiency across a massive technical stack involving Trino, Iceberg, and S3. You will have the autonomy to launch cross-functional projects that impact the company’s bottom line
Bridge AI and Data: Collaborate with AI initiative leads to ensure the Data Cloud provides the necessary "backend of the backend" infrastructure to support complex, high-velocity data transformations
High-Leverage Leadership: Act as a force multiplier for a senior-heavy team of Staff and Senior Staff engineers. You will transmute ambiguous business needs into concrete technical architectures that multiple teams can execute against
Engineering Excellence: Set the standard for state-of-the-art development at Rippling, working with technologies like Python, MongoDB, CDC, Kafka, and Flink to build ingestion systems that operate at a global scale
Qualification
Required
12+ years of experience in backend or data platform engineering, with a proven track record of operating at the Principal or Senior Staff (L9+) level
Deep Systems Expertise: You have extensive experience with database internals, query optimization, or building custom compilers/programming languages
Big Data Mastery: Proficient in the 'modern data lakehouse' stack—specifically Trino/Presto, Apache Iceberg, and S3
Scale & Maturity: You have seen what 'good' looks like at a massive scale and know how to navigate a system through the growing pains of rapid organizational scaling
Dual-Ended Impact: You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a multi-year architectural vision with VPs as you are diving into a complex debugging session with a Staff engineer
Product-Minded Infrastructure: You care deeply about the 'why' behind the data. You build platforms not just for technical elegance, but to unlock customer value and business impact
Benefits
Competitive salary
Benefits
Equity
Company
Rippling
Rippling is a workforce management platform that unifies HR, IT, and finance operations into a single system.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Rippling 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 (2)
2024 (42)
2023 (70)
2022 (81)
2021 (33)
2020 (6)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$2.44BKey Investors
CoatueGreenoaksFounders Fund
2025-05-09Series G· $450M
2024-04-22Series F· $200M
2024-04-22Secondary Market· $590M
Leadership Team
Albert Strasheim
Chief Technology Officer
Adil Syed
CFO
Recent News
2026-01-24
initialized.com
2026-01-21
Company data provided by crunchbase