Senior Software Engineer, Backend Full Stack - Rippling AI

About the role

At Rippling, we're not just building AI features, we're building an autonomous operating system for work. We're investing heavily in the next generation of enterprise AI: intelligent background automation, systems that monitor and improve themselves, and a custom intelligence layer built on Rippling's unique data and workflows. The opportunity is to make Rippling's products fundamentally smarter and more autonomous over time, not through one-off features, but through platform-level infrastructure that compounds.

You'll be joining the team that recently launched Rippling AI, the fastest-growing product in Rippling's history. Every customer touchpoint, from onboarding to expense approvals to IT requests, is being rebuilt around agents, and the platform you build will be the foundation every AI surface at Rippling runs on. We're moving at startup speed with the reach of a category leader, and we're staffing this team like it's the most important bet at the company.

As a Senior Full Stack Engineer for Rippling AI, you'll own meaningful technical initiatives end-to-end - from backend infrastructure to the user-facing surfaces that make AI capabilities accessible, trustworthy, and intuitive. You'll drive architecture decisions within your scope, collaborate closely with engineers across product, infra, and platform orgs, and work alongside some of the best engineers and product leaders at Rippling. This is a deeply hands-on role where you'll be in the weeds of the code - across the entire stack.

What you will do

• Own end-to-end technical design and implementation for high-impact AI platform initiatives - from backend systems through to the frontend surfaces that expose them to users and admins
• Build scalable agent infrastructure that automates repetitive, high-frequency workflows across Rippling's product surface
• Design and implement user-facing AI experiences that are observable, controllable, and intuitive - translating complex backend capabilities into clean, trustworthy interfaces
• Develop harness and platform capabilities that encode business logic and institutional knowledge into reliable, automated workflows
• Build frontend components and interaction patterns for AI-powered surfaces including chat interfaces, agent dashboards, configuration UIs, and real-time feedback loops
• Collaborate closely with engineers across product, infra, and platform organizations to deliver cohesive experiences across the stack
• Design systems that are observable, self-correcting, and capable of improving over time with minimal human intervention
• Partner closely with Product and Design to ensure AI-powered surfaces are trustworthy, controllable, and delightful for end users and admins
• Mentor junior engineers, contribute to best practices for full stack AI platform development, and raise the technical bar on your team
• Track the frontier - translate model capability improvements into architectural and UX decisions, and move quickly when new approaches unlock better outcomes

What you will need

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with a proven track record of owning and delivering complex technical projects across the full stack
• Strong expertise in platform and distributed systems engineering - you've built reliable, observable, large-scale backend systems
• Proficiency in modern frontend frameworks (React/TypeScript) with a strong sense for building polished, performant user experiences
• Strong hands-on coding skills; you are an active, high-output contributor in the codebase - backend and frontend
• Experience driving technical initiatives end-to-end, including collaborating across teams to deliver outcomes that span infrastructure through UI
• Strong product instincts - you translate ambiguous problems into durable platform capabilities and intuitive user experiences, and partner effectively with product and design teams
• Clear, precise communication to diverse audiences, both written and verbal
• Comfort with ambiguity and high velocity; the roadmap evolves as the technology evolves
• Recent hands-on experience building AI agents or AI-powered user interfaces is a plus

Additional Information

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

Pay and benefits

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.