Senior Engineering Manager - Streaming Data Infrastructure

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 official communication will only be sent from @Rippling.com addresses.

About The Role

Rippling is looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to lead our Data Streaming Infrastructure team. This team builds the backbone of our streaming data architecture, enabling Rippling to scale and deliver innovative solutions across HR, IT, and Finance.

You will guide a group of talented engineers to create reliable, scalable infrastructure that powers mission-critical workflows, such as employee onboarding and payroll processing, across multiple systems. In addition to leading technical strategy and development, you will focus on optimizing infrastructure costs, ensuring the scalability and efficiency of our systems. You’ll also play a key role in hiring and mentoring senior engineers to expand the team’s capabilities.

If you're passionate about streaming data, distributed systems, and leading teams to solve complex technical challenges, this is the role for you.

What You'll Do

As the Senior Engineering Manager for the Data Streaming Infrastructure team, you will:

• Lead and mentor a team of senior engineers, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture.
• Hire and onboard senior engineers, ensuring the team is equipped with the talent needed to scale our infrastructure.
• Define and execute technical strategy for event-driven systems and real-time data processing.
• Collaborate with product teams to understand streaming requirements and ensure alignment with business goals.
• Oversee large-scale projects involving data migration, streaming pipelines, and system integrations.
• Design and architect scalable, real-time streaming data systems using Kafka, Flink, Kubernetes, and AWS.
• Analyze and optimize infrastructure costs while maintaining system reliability and performance.

Qualifications

Technical Requirements:

• 7+ years of engineering experience, including 3+ years in engineering management.
• Deep expertise in distributed streaming systems and real-time data processing.
• Strong background in designing and building event-driven microservices.
• Hands-on experience managing real-time data at scale in production environments.
• Experience in optimizing infrastructure costs in cloud environments.
• Bonus points for direct experience with:
• • The Apache Kafka ecosystem, including Kafka Connectors.
  • Apache Flink for stream processing.
  • AWS cloud infrastructure.
  • Kubernetes for container orchestration.

Leadership & Soft Skills:

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Proven ability to manage, hire, and mentor engineering talent, fostering career growth.
• Strategic thinker with a hands-on, problem-solving approach to technical challenges.
• Track record of delivering large-scale infrastructure projects with high quality and reliability.

Why Join Rippling?

At Rippling, you'll have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies and build solutions that redefine how businesses operate. You'll lead a critical team, optimizing costs, scaling systems, and hiring world-class talent to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

If you’re ready to lead the charge in building efficient, scalable, and cost-effective data streaming infrastructure, apply today and help shape the future of workforce technology.

Additional Information:

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics, Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email accomodations@rippling.com.

Rippling highly values in-office collaboration. Employees living within 30 miles of an office are expected to work onsite three days a week with those living 30-49.9 miles away expected to be in the office one day a week. Employees living over 50 miles away are required to relocate within 30 miles of an office. To enhance team cohesiveness, new employees are asked to work onsite three days a week for their first six months.

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here.A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.