Senior Engineering Manager - Payroll Calculation

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 $1.4B+ 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 the role

Payroll is the most critical financial transaction between a company and its people. The Rippling Payroll Calculations team is the engine at the heart of payroll, responsible for accurately calculating every component of a paycheck—from earnings and deductions to complex taxes and withholdings—for employees worldwide. This engine is mission-critical, processing billions of dollars every month and integrating deeply with other Rippling products  like HRIS, Benefits, Time & Attendance and Reports.

As the Engineering Manager, you will have a dual mission: leading a mission-critical migration to unblock our global  expansion strategy, while simultaneously building the future of Rippling’s most impactful product.. You will execute under pressure, manage complex migrations, and motivate a team to build the foundation for our next phase of growth. You'll tackle one of the most complex challenges in fintech—creating flexible, high-performance systems that navigate complex compensation structures while ensuring accurate payroll calculations. If you’re excited about complex algorithmic challenges with a massive real-world impact, this is the team for you.

What you will do

• Execute and Unblock: Own the delivery of a critical migration to move all US payroll customers onto our global payroll framework. You will manage the roadmap, clear obstacles, and drive the project to completion against a high-priority deadline.
• Be involved technically: Rippling is growing fast and pushes new frontiers. You will own a critical engine that can significantly accelerate this growth (or become a friction for it). A strong technical foundation is the key to balance fact growth and operational success.
• Lead and Motivate: Guide a team of engineers through a period of high operational load, managing on-call escalations, incidents, and a high volume of support while maintaining team morale and focus.
• Build and Scale the Team: Grow and mentor a high-performing team. You will be responsible for hiring, career development, and fostering a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and resilience.
• Partner on Strategy: Work closely with Product Management to define the long-term roadmap. After the migration, you will shift focus to clearing our feature backlog and building the capabilities to land larger up-market deals.
• Drive Technical Excellence: Lead the team in reshaping our codebase for the future. You'll make strategic decisions on how to refactor our legacy systems and build scalable, extensible architecture that can handle 100x growth.
• Collaborate and Influence: Serve as the key technical leader for US payroll, educating and influencing cross-functional teams and stakeholders to solve problems of scale related to code, process, and product.

What you will need

• Experience: 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years in an engineering management role leading backend or platform teams.
• Technical Depth: A strong technical background in building and maintaining large-scale, distributed systems. You are comfortable guiding technical discussions, contributing to architecture, and mana