Staff Engineer- Stripe Data Pipeline

Who we are

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone’s reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

The Stripe Data Pipeline (SDP) team owns a critical product that sends all of a merchant's Stripe data directly to their data warehouse. This role is essential for delivering petabytes of data daily with high reliability and low latency, marching towards a 99.99% availability and near real-time data freshness. SDP's unique selling proposition is making data seamlessly available, serving a customer base that includes major technology and Fortune 100 companies.

What you’ll do

As a Staff engineer on our team, you won’t just build; you’ll lead the architectural direction and technical strategy of complex, large-scale systems that directly impact thousands of businesses.

You’ll work closely with product, design, and data teams to translate complex business requirements into intuitive and powerful tools that help our users thrive. Your work will be instrumental in enabling businesses of all sizes to leverage the power of their data, and you'll be a key contributor to our mission of redefining business analytics.

Responsibilities

• Lead and Architect: Take ownership of end-to-end architecture and system design for large, complex projects. Drive technical decisions that ensure scalability, reliability, and high performance across distributed systems.
• Mentor and Influence: Provide technical leadership to other engineers on the team, setting best practices in system design, architecture, and operational excellence. Act as a mentor, guiding less experienced engineers to grow into senior roles.
• Drive Product Innovation: Innovate by leveraging the latest in ML, LLMs, and data technologies, driving new features that help businesses optimize their revenue with predictive insights and advanced analytics.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner with product, design, and data teams to deeply understand business problems and craft solutions that balance user needs, system performance, and scalability.
• Tackle Complexity: Navigate ambiguous technical challenges, breaking down complex problems into actionable solutions, and driving them from inception to successful deployment.
• Champion System Scalability and Stability: Ensure Stripe’s reporting products continue to operate at scale while maintaining system stability and providing seamless user experiences, handling billions of data points efficiently.

Who you are

We’re looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum requirements

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling backend distributed systems or data processing platforms at scale.
• Proven experience leading the architecture and design of large, complex systems, particularly in highly scalable environments.
• A strong track record of taking technical ownership of projects from concept to delivery, influencing both the technical and product roadmap.
• Deep expertise in system design, databases, and API development, with a focus on building systems that handle large data volumes reliably and efficiently.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• A collaborative team player who values and respects diverse perspectives and enjoys working across functions and organizational boundaries.
• Humility and an eagerness to tackle new challenges, solve complex problems, and contribute to a positive team culture.
• Experience in a role that involves external customer interaction or technical consulting.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in the payments or financial technology industry is a plus, though not required.
• Familiarity with data warehousing and modern cloud data architectures.
• A proven track record of solving challenging technical problems related to data consistency and delivery at petabyte scale