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

The Identity team's mission is to provide a single source of truth for authentication and security policy management for all users, applications, and increasingly, autonomous agents operating across Rippling's ecosystem.

We are seeking an exceptional Senior Staff Software Engineer to help define the next generation of Identity and Access Management at Rippling. As AI transforms how work gets done, organizations are increasingly relying on agents to perform tasks across dozens of systems and applications. This introduces entirely new challenges around authentication, authorization, trust, and governance that the industry is only beginning to address.

In this role, you will lead the architecture and technical strategy behind Rippling's evolving Identity Platform, helping expand our identity model beyond employees and applications to include AI agents acting on behalf of users and organizations. You will work on foundational problems such as agent authentication, delegated permissions, authorization boundaries, proof of identity, and secure access to sensitive systems and data.

This is a unique opportunity to shape one of the most critical platforms at Rippling while helping establish how organizations safely and effectively deploy autonomous agents at scale. You will tackle complex distributed systems challenges, influence company-wide strategy, collaborate closely with product and security leaders, and drive the future of identity in an increasingly agent-driven world.

What you will do

• Build the Identity Layer for the Agentic Workforce: Lead the design and development of foundational identity infrastructure that enables secure authentication and authorization for employees, applications, vendors, and autonomous agents operating across Rippling's ecosystem.
• Develop the Authorization Framework for AI Agents: Architect systems that determine who owns an agent, what permissions it should have, what actions it is allowed to perform, and what data it can access. Build the trust and governance models required to safely operate agents at enterprise scale.
• Build the Runtime Layer for Cross-System Access: Design and scale the infrastructure that enables agents and users to securely interact with hundreds of connected applications and services while respecting organizational policies, permissions, and compliance requirements.
• Drive Company-Wide Collaboration and Strategy: Partner across engineering, product, security, AI, and platform organizations to define how identity and access management evolve as autonomous workflows become increasingly central to how work gets done.
• Redefine Digital Identity at Rippling: Help evolve Rippling's identity model from an employee-centric system into a broader platform capable of representing and governing employees, contractors, vendors, applications, service accounts, and AI agents.
• Provide Technical and Architectural Leadership: Serve as a technical leader for the Identity organization, driving long-term architecture, operational excellence, and engineering standards while helping build a world-class identity platform.

What you will need

• Demonstrated mastery in designing, building, and scaling complex distributed systems, with a strong interest in solving challenging identity, authorization, and security problems.
• Proven ability to lead large-scale technical initiatives and influence engineering strategy across multiple teams and organizations.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to drive alignment and articulate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.
• Deep understanding of security principles and practical experience with authentication, authorization, IAM, cryptography, or access control systems is strongly preferred.
• Experience building platform or infrastructure products that serve a broad set of internal or external customers.
• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience thriving in fast-paced, highly ambiguous environments where foundational systems are being built and defined.
• A passion for product-focused environments where customer impact is a primary driver, combined with excitement for shaping how identity and trust will work in an AI-driven future.

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 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.

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.