Senior Software Engineer - AI Initiative

Rippling’s AI Platform team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to build foundational AI infrastructure across the company’s product ecosystem. This is a highly hands-on, backend/platform-oriented role for engineers who can own systems end to end.

About the role

You will spend about 60% of your time coding, debugging, reviewing code, and owning implementation. The role is designed for engineers with strong programming knowledge in at least one backend/general-purpose language and experience building and operating scalable backend/platform systems in production.

Responsibilities

• Build foundational AI platform systems supporting HR, IT, Finance, payroll, benefits, recruiting, compliance, and internal workflows
• Design and build AI platform capabilities such as background agents, automated workflows, evaluation systems, data pipelines, and model quality feedback loops
• Build systems that let AI agents automate enterprise workflows with permissions, controls, approvals, and auditability
• Support self-healing and self-improving workflows that detect negative product signals and help identify root causes
• Partner with Staff Engineers, Product, Infra, Platform, and Engineering stakeholders to turn ambiguous problems into scalable technical solutions
• Own components end to end from design and implementation through testing, launch, monitoring, and iteration
• Participate in design discussions, code reviews, debugging, production support, and operational improvements
• Build reliable, scalable, and maintainable backend/platform systems for Rippling’s product ecosystem
• Work on Rippling’s unified data model and permission system while respecting access controls and providing verifiable outputs
• Solve challenges around agent orchestration, workflow execution, reliability, permissions, evaluations, observability, data quality, and scalable AI infrastructure
• Build systems that understand Rippling’s business context, workflows, and enterprise data
• Ramp quickly into Rippling’s AI platform, codebase, product context, and internal systems
• Maintain strong execution quality across coding, testing, debugging, observability, and operational ownership
• Contribute through documentation and mentoring junior engineers where needed
• Grow toward Staff-level scope by taking on more ambiguous problems, mentoring other engineers, and influencing broader technical direction

Requirements

• 5–8 years of overall software engineering experience
• 60% hands-on coding is non-negotiable
• Strong programming knowledge in at least one backend/general-purpose language
• Experience building and operating scalable backend/platform systems in production
• Strong understanding of system design, API design, databases, data modeling, concurrency, observability, and production troubleshooting
• Ability to independently own well-defined to moderately ambiguous technical problems from design to execution, launch, and iteration
• Comfort working in a fast-paced product engineering environment with changing priorities and high ownership
• Strong collaboration skills with Product, Infra, Platform, and Engineering stakeholders
• Ability to contribute to design reviews, code reviews, technical discussions, and team quality

Skills

• LLM Agentic AI
• RAG
• Gen AI
• LangChain
• Python
• SQL
• Java
• Go
• C++
• Scala
• Kotlin
• C#
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• AI platform
• LLM infrastructure
• Agentic workflows
• ML/data infrastructure
• Inference pipelines
• Evaluation systems
• Automation systems
• Backend engineering
• Platform engineering
• Distributed systems
• APIs
• Databases
• Data modeling
• Concurrency
• Observability
• Production debugging
• Workflow orchestration
• Background automation
• Reliability platforms
• Internal tools
• Developer productivity platforms
• Permissions
• Approvals
• Auditability
• Compliance
• Security-sensitive workflows
• Fintech
• HR tech
• Payroll
• Benefits
• Enterprise SaaS

Nice to have

• Prior experience in a high-growth or hyper-growth startup or product-led technology company
• Recent hands-on exposure to AI agents, LLM tooling, AI infrastructure, automation platforms, evaluation systems, or data/ML pipelines
• Strong knowledge of Python for AI/ML infrastructure, automation, agents, scripting, evaluations, or data pipelines
• Strong SQL knowledge for querying, data-heavy systems, analytics, workflow systems, reporting, and enterprise intelligence use cases
• Experience with Go, Java, C++, or Scala in backend, platform, infrastructure, or distributed systems environments
• Exposure to TypeScript or JavaScript for full-stack, internal tooling, dashboards, or product surface ownership
• Experience with workflow orchestration, background automation, reliability platforms, internal tools, or developer productivity platforms
• Exposure to permissions, approvals, auditability, compliance, or security-sensitive workflows
• Prior exposure to fintech, HR tech, payroll, benefits, compliance, IT, enterprise SaaS, or workflow-heavy platforms
• Clear evidence of learning quickly, taking ownership, and operating well in ambiguous environments
• Practical curiosity or exposure to AI agents, LLM infrastructure, automation systems, ML/data infrastructure, inference, evaluations, or adjacent AI systems

Pay

$180K–200K/yr

Schedule

Full-time, onsite in San Francisco