Staff Software Engineer - AI Agents, Automations, & Plugins

About the role

Rippling is building the foundational AI infrastructure that powers intelligent, automated experiences across the entire platform. The Agents, Automations & Plugins team sits within the AI Cloud org and owns everything related to creating, invoking, installing, and orchestrating AI agents — both for Rippling's internal product teams and for customers building their own.

This team is responsible for:

• Plugins & MCP Connectivity — how external tools and services connect to Rippling's AI layer
• Automations — event-driven and scheduled AI-powered workflows that execute autonomously
• Agents — the foundational primitives that allow AI agents to be created, triggered, and composed with skills and tools
• Skills Packaging & Installation — how capabilities are bundled, distributed, and made available to agents

This is greenfield, foundational work. You're not maintaining legacy systems — you're building the platform layer that every AI-powered feature at Rippling will depend on.

What you will do

• Own major AI agent infrastructure initiatives across backend, platform, and AI-enabled systems
• Lead design and execution for systems supporting agent creation, invocation, triggering, skill packaging, plugin connectivity, and automation orchestration
• Build the foundational tools and primitives that enable both internal Rippling teams and external customers to create and deploy their own AI agents
• Act as a technical lead for cross-functional work involving Product, AI Infra, Platform, and Engineering teams across the AI Cloud org
• Break down ambiguous technical problems into clear architecture and execution plans — the roadmap is actively being built, and you'll shape it
• Write code, review critical code paths, debug production issues, and make implementation-level decisions daily
• Build platform systems that are reusable across multiple Rippling product teams
• Raise the engineering bar through design reviews, code reviews, mentoring, and technical guidance
• Balance speed, quality, reliability, and long-term platform maintainability in a fast-moving environment

What you will need

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with a proven track record of technical leadership and org-wide impact
• Deep expertise in platform and distributed systems engineering — you've built reliable, observable, large-scale systems
• Strong hands-on coding skills, you are an active contributor in the codebase alongside your leadership responsibilities
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional technical initiatives and driving alignment across multiple teams
• Strong product instincts, you translate ambiguous problems into durable platform capabilities and partner effectively with product teams
• Clear, precise communication to diverse audiences, both written and verbal
• Comfort with ambiguity and high velocity, the roadmap evolves as the technology evolves
• Strong curiosity around AI agents, LLM infrastructure, agentic workflows, automation systems, or plugin/tool-use architectures
• Recent hands-on experience building AI agents is a plus

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 [email protected]

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.