Staff Software Engineer - AI Agents, Automations, & Plugins

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. The team recently transitioned from Talent Engineering into the AI Cloud org under Laks Srini, and is now laser-focused on shipping the core agent infrastructure.

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

• 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

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.

The pay range for this role is: 189,000 - 315,000 USD per year(US Tier 1)

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.