Staff Software Engineer, Database & Caching Infrastructure
About The Position
PayPal is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for its database and caching infrastructure. The role acts as a project or system leader, coordinating engineering work, determining technical tasks, making technical decisions, and improving engineering structures and processes. It requires balancing time, quality, complexity, and risk to identify effective solutions, and collaborating with management to establish and improve engineering standards. The engineer may represent PayPal in interactions with partners, customers, or industry organizations. The position leads complex architectural discussions spanning multiple systems, authors and presents architecture decision records, identifies product and functionality gaps, and collaborates with product and technology teams to deliver solutions. It drives integrations and critical work streams for strategic initiatives, engineering excellence through reusable production-ready frameworks, CI/CD, and automation, and the reduction of technical debt. The engineer also identifies and troubleshoots technical and integration issues, leads root cause analysis for production incidents, and supports large-scale system and data migrations. The role is based in Austin, Texas, with PayPal's balanced hybrid model: generally three days in the office and two days at either the office or home. Travel is listed as 0 percent. The annual base pay range for Austin is $160,500 to $238,700. Additional compensation may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentives, as applicable.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of relevant experience and a bachelor's degree, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Nice To Haves
- Proficiency in at least one backend language: Java, Go, or Python.
- Backend development experience designing and implementing scalable, reliable RESTful services; experience with Spring or similar frameworks is a plus.
- Ability to mentor junior engineers and contribute to code reviews and design discussions.
- Experience with at least one cloud platform: GCP, AWS, or Azure.
- Advanced skills with relational and NoSQL data stores, including database design and data modeling, and familiarity with ORM tools.
- Experience with caching solutions such as Redis, Aerospike, or Hazelcast, and messaging or queuing systems such as Kafka, Pulsar, RabbitMQ, or SQS.
- Experience with containers and Kubernetes.
- Experience building and operating low-latency, high-throughput systems, with strong observability practices.
- Experience leading large-scale system or data migrations.
Responsibilities
- Act as a project or system leader, coordinating the activities of other engineers.
- Determine the technical tasks that other engineers will follow.
- Proactively improve existing structures and processes.
- Balance time, quality, complexity, and risk when selecting solutions to problems.
- Identify recurring patterns and develop generalized solutions.
- Collaborate with management to establish and improve standards for engineering rigor.
- Represent PayPal in interactions with partners, customers, or industry organizations.
- Lead complex architectural discussions spanning multiple systems, and author and present architecture decision records (ADRs).
- Identify product and functionality gaps and work with product and technology teams to define development needed to deliver solutions.
- Drive integration efforts and lead critical work streams for strategic initiatives sponsored by senior executives.
- Create reusable, production-ready frameworks and promote engineering excellence.
- Drive engineering excellence through CI/CD and automation.
- Proactively identify and troubleshoot integration and technical issues, and lead root cause analysis for production incidents.
- Reduce technical debt with a clear plan for removing it from the system.
- Lead large-scale system or data migrations.
Benefits
- Comprehensive, choice-based wellbeing programs supporting physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing.
- Generous paid time off.
- Healthcare coverage for employees and their families.
- Resources to support financial security and mental health.
- Potential annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
