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.

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

Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents, Web Client Plug-ins, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents, Web Client Plug-ins, Multiplatform/Cross-Platform, MCP - Microsoft Certified Professional, Systems Maintenance, * 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.