Staff Software Engineer, Backend RQL

The Platform team is responsible for developing core services and cross-cutting products that form the building blocks at Rippling. Other engineering teams at Rippling leverage these fundamental Lego blocks to create complex products on top of them.

The team owns the analytics customizable workflows data platform reporting permissions and custom fields products. All these projects have customer-facing product components and core platform components supporting 10 product teams. This is a unique opportunity to work on both product and platform layers at the same time.

At Rippling we want users to configure and customize our features/products without complexity. Therefore weve created a new language called Rippling Query Language (RQL) which allows our customers to write Queries and scripts to create Formula Fields inside of our analytics suite applications in Data Cloud and extend functionality elsewhere across Rippling.

RQL internally has its own grammar parser query translator distributed query processing engine and a distributed datastore. You will work on challenging technical challenges like distributed systems and big data technologies.

• Work on distributed processing engines and distributed databases
• Develop high-quality software with attention to detail using tech stacks like Python MongoDB CDC and Kafka
• Leverage big data technologies like Aurora Trino Presto Pinot Iceberg Flink and more.
• Build custom programming languages within the Rippling Platform
• Create data platforms data lakes and data ingestion systems that work at scale
• Design develop code and test software systems improvements products and user-facing experiences
• Work alongside software architects and senior developers doing state-of-the-art development work
• Contribute to product design and implementation discussions
• Find and build unique solutions to implement projects from the idea phase to production

• 8 years experience in backend engineering roles
• Experience writing testable and performant backend code
• Experience working in a fast-paced dynamic environment
• Experience mentoring less-experienced developers
• Ability to thrive in an environment that grants you a lot of autonomy to explore creative solutions

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

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 employees role.

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 someones compensationincluding a candidates professional background experience and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.

Required Experience:

Staff IC