Sr Staff Software Engineer - Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps

PayPal•San Jose, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

This job makes technical decisions affecting multiple teams, establishes conventions and processes, handles multi-team initiatives, applies industry practices, communicates technical issues, mentors others, and partners with product management. At Venmo, we are creating a product that redefines how people think about payments. We strive to deliver an outstanding user experience while empowering people to connect seamlessly with each other and the world. We are looking for highly passionate and intellectually curious individuals who want to innovate, solve complex problems, and inspire a team to achieve groundbreaking results. At this level, you will be instrumental in shaping the technical vision, strategy, and operational effectiveness of our infrastructure and cloud services. Our team is committed to the smooth and reliable operation of Venmo’s infrastructure and applications, encompassing operations, automation, security, compliance, and release engineering. While our focus is mainly on Cloud Engineering, elements of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps principles are integral to our scope. As a Sr. Staff Software Engineer, you will set the strategic direction and lead our most technical initiatives. You will drive technical excellence across the team and act as the top-level mentor for all engineers within Venmo's Cloud Engineering and DevOps group. You will be expected not just to lead initiatives but also to shape Venmo's next-generation infrastructure while maintaining hands-on technical involvement. You will work closely with product and engineering leadership to define and execute strategies that ensure scalability, long-term reliability, and unparalleled efficiency for our cloud solutions. You will be part of Venmo’s technical architect group, responsible for charting and delivering major advancements in our systems design and application development practices.

Requirements

8+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
10+ years of hands-on experience in Cloud Engineering, DevOps, software development or a related field.
7+ years operating distributed applications at scale (24x7x365) within Cloud Engineering, DevOps, or SRE frameworks.
3+ years of technical leadership experience, with a proven track record of leading teams through high-impact technical initiatives.
Deep expertise with designing, implementing, optimizing, and supporting complex, large-scale infrastructure systems.
Extensive, hands-on experience with IaaS and PaaS offerings (AWS or similar cloud providers).
Advanced proficiency in programming/scripting languages like Python, Java, Bash, and Go.
In-depth experience with containers (Docker) and orchestration tools (Kubernetes/EKS).
Demonstrated ability to mentor, coach, and elevate engineers' technical and operational capabilities.
Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to explain highly technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
Recognized as a thought leader, with contributions to engineering teams that shape culture, drive innovation, and deliver measurable results.
Experience with synthetic testing and vulnerability scanning to ensure secure systems delivery.

Nice To Haves

Expertise in balancing technical excellence with business objectives to deliver tangible results.
A mindset focused on driving reliability, scalability, and optimization across both new and existing systems.
A passion for mentoring engineers and fostering a culture of learning, sharing, and innovation.
A track record of delivering impactful solutions while pushing boundaries and solving complex problems.

Responsibilities

Makes technical decisions affecting multiple teams, crossing organizational boundaries
Establishes conventions & processes to be followed by other employees
Actions determine the utilization of company resources (people, money, assets) and affect the effectiveness of the company
Handles multiple, multi-team initiatives simultaneously, using judgement to prioritize among more issues than can be handled individually.
Understands evolving industry capabilities & practices and can judiciously apply up--to-date information for optimal results
Competent at communicating technical issues with non-technical audiences
Spreads their behavior, principles, and knowledge as a means of improving technical results of other employees (via many means – modeling behavior, 1:1s, working sessions, quality documentation)
Partners with product management, to ideate solutions to business problems & goals
Contribute, refine, and drive the strategic direction of multiple technical domains, leading the highest-impact initiatives critical to Venmo's infrastructure roadmap.
Act as the key visionary and hands-on contributor to ensure the team's delivery and scalability goals align with engineering excellence standards.
Teach by example—mentoring senior and junior engineers—and act as a technical authority for critical decisions across our systems.
Enable cross-team collaboration to achieve seamless delivery of cloud-native applications powered by AWS services, Kubernetes (EKS), and container-based solutions.
Provide expert-level guidance on optimizing infrastructure for high growth and robust reliability while also handling cost efficiency.
Evangelize and implement Cloud Engineering DevOps practices, ensuring CI/CD pipelines, microservice testing frameworks, and secret management systems operate securely and efficiently.
Advance the team’s capabilities in Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), enabling automation, secure releases, and vulnerability prevention.
Partner with engineering and product teams, supporting strategic delivery plans while implementing scalable and sustainable solutions.
Drive efforts to recognize and adopt emerging technologies and architectures that unlock technical potential and align with Venmo’s long-term objectives.
Collaborate with leadership and peers to define exciting, high-impact engineering initiatives that align with Venmo’s vision and roadmap.
Define designs and strategies, identify stakeholders, mitigate risks, communicate changes, and implement solutions at scale.
Troubleshoot complex incidents, uncover patterns and root causes, and design preventive tools and processes.
Coach engineers across multiple teams, instilling principles of scalable system design, optimization, and continuous improvement.
Develop tools, frameworks, and automation that push Venmo's infrastructure to set benchmarks for speed, efficiency, and reliability.
Conduct reviews and audits to ensure quality systems delivery while maintaining a culture of continuous feedback and accountability.
Lead efforts to integrate modern cloud technologies—accelerating Venmo's position as an industry leader in payments infrastructure.