Web Architect

PayPal • San Jose, CA

3d • $218,000 - $323,950 • Hybrid

About The Position

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers. We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards. Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day. We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities. Job Summary: PayPal Checkout is the company’s highest-impact web surface—where performance, reliability, security, and user trust directly influence conversion and revenue at global scale. We are hiring a Principal Web Architect to define and drive the end-to-end web architecture strategy for Checkout experiences across consumer and merchant journeys. This role blends deep technical expertise with broad organizational influence. You will set architectural direction, establish engineering standards, and lead cross-functional alignment across Web, Mobile, Backend, Platform/SRE, Security, Risk, Product, and Design—while delivering measurable improvements in customer experience and business outcomes.

Requirements

• 10+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale web systems, including recent depth in modern front-end architecture.
• Demonstrated Principal-level impact: driving architecture across multiple teams, influencing roadmaps, and delivering measurable improvements in platform health and business outcomes.
• Expert in modern web engineering and architecture, including: JavaScript/TypeScript and component-based architectures (e.g., React or equivalent) Build systems and bundling optimization, monorepo strategies, dependency governance Server-side and edge patterns (Node.js, SSR, caching, CDN/edge computing) and BFF/API design collaboration
• Strong track record in: Performance engineering (profiling, rendering pipelines, caching, bundle splitting, CWV optimization) Observability (client telemetry, tracing, metrics, experimentation analysis) Quality and release engineering (CI/CD, progressive delivery, test strategy, rollout safety)
• Excellent communication: able to articulate complex technical decisions clearly to engineering and non-engineering stakeholders and drive alignment at senior levels.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with high-scale checkout/payments, identity, fraud/risk, or other high-trust consumer flows.
• Experience operating globally distributed systems with strict latency and uptime requirements.
• Accessibility expertise (WCAG) and experience building inclusive, scalable UI foundations.
• Experience building platform libraries/frameworks used broadly across an organization.

Responsibilities

• Increases results & effectiveness of all software engineers in a large domain
• Sets the technology roadmap for a domain
• Adapts their role to the need, selecting the most effective means of realizing their technical goals
• Provides advice and counsel to senior executives within PayPal, influencing the development of multi-year business strategies
• Exercises wide latitude in determining objectives and approaches to assignments and takes initiative to achieve results
• Handles ambiguous and unfamiliar situations and uses creativity to deliver decisive resolutions
• Uses discovery & exploratory research, not being limited to technical domains, to make successful decisions
• Identifies themes & trends that span projects and teams, and finds broadly impactful opportunities for improvement
• Uses professional savvy to determine when industry-standard solutions can be adopted, versus when a problem space warrants a novel solution (“build/buy”)
• Mentor others as a means of propagating technical influence, and to enhance the performance of their organization
• Own the web architecture vision for Checkout, aligning long-term platform strategy with near-term product priorities.
• Define and evolve standards for modern web engineering, such as micro-frontend strategies, shared UI foundations/design systems, SSR/SPA tradeoffs, BFF/API-for-frontend patterns, and edge/CDN architecture.
• Lead architecture governance: establish decision frameworks, run architecture reviews, and maintain reference architectures and standards documentation.
• Set measurable targets for web performance (e.g., Core Web Vitals, startup latency, TTI, bundle efficiency) and drive outcomes through engineering roadmaps and guardrails.
• Partner with SRE/Platform to improve availability and resilience: graceful degradation, dependency isolation, safe rollouts, feature flags, canary strategies, and incident readiness.
• Build a culture of observability and data-driven iteration: client telemetry, tracing, logging, funnel instrumentation, experimentation frameworks, and actionable dashboards.
• Ensure Checkout web architecture is secure-by-design: threat modeling, authentication/session patterns, secure coding and dependency practices, and robust PII handling.
• Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure designs meet internal controls and regulatory requirements while preserving performance and UX.
• Operate as a senior technical leader across multiple squads: align stakeholders, resolve architectural conflicts, and unblock execution.
• Mentor senior engineers and technical leads; elevate standards through design reviews, code review practices, and technical deep dives.
• Influence product strategy with technical insight—identifying platform investments that reduce toil, increase delivery velocity, and improve user outcomes.

Benefits

• At PayPal, we’re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can’t do this without our most important asset—you. That’s why we offer benefits to help you thrive in every stage of life. We champion your financial, physical, and mental health by offering valuable benefits and resources to help you care for the whole you.
• We have great benefits including a flexible work environment, employee shares options, health and life insurance and more.
• To learn more about our benefits please visit https://www.paypalbenefits.com.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level