Staff Software Engineer

PayPal

Staff engineer leading scalable backend and payment-platform engineering for PayPal’s Venmo. Designing services, guiding engineers, and owning reliability for 65 million active users.

Posted 9/2/2026full-timeAustin • California, Texas • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $160,500 - $238,700 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in leading engineering teams and projects, with a strong focus on designing and implementing scalable software services. Proficient in managing relationships across technical and non-technical teams while ensuring operational excellence and adherence to engineering standards.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Python ProgrammingRDBMS and NoSQL ExpertiseCloud Services (AWS, GCP, Azure)Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)Distributed Services Knowledge

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Software DesignImplementation ExcellenceSDLC ProcessCaching Solutions (Redis, ElastiCache, Hazelcast)Messaging Systems (SQS, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pulsar)

Soft Skills

Project LeadershipMentoring Engineering StaffRelationship Management

Industry Keywords

Operational ExcellenceIncident SupportTechnical LeadershipEngineering StandardsScalable Systems

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSAzureCloudGoogle Cloud PlatformKafkaNoSQLPulsarPythonRabbitMQRDBMSRedisSDLCTerraform

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Act as a project or system leader, coordinating other engineers
Determine technical tasks for engineers
Improve existing structures, processes, and engineering standards
Reconcile competing priorities to identify optimal solutions
Lead engineering efforts and team-level processes
Provide technical advice to senior leaders on systems, solutions, challenges, and strategy
Own design, implementation, and operational excellence of software components
Contribute to the technical engineering roadmap through implementation assessments and recommendations
Provide technical leadership for a small team
Design, estimate, and implement secure, reliable, scalable software services
Deliver high-quality code on time while following the SDLC process
Own service performance and availability
Participate in on-call rotations and provide incident support
Represent PayPal to partners, customers, and industry organizations

Requirements

What you’ll need

5+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR any equivalent combination of education and experience
Bachelor’s and/or Master’s in computer science, or a related field of study, or equivalent experience
8+ years’ experience with Python or equivalent high-level programming language
Advanced skills with RDBMS and NoSQL data stores
Experience with caching solutions such as Redis, ElastiCache, or Hazelcast
Experience with messaging/queuing systems such as SQS, Kafka, RabbitMQ, or Pulsar
Ability to lead projects and mentor all levels of engineering staff
Ability to manage relationships with Product, Engineering Operations, and non-technical business and support teams
Expert knowledge of distributed services and backend systems
Expertise building services on public cloud, preferably AWS, GCP, or Azure
Experience managing infrastructure as code using Terraform
Experience working with fault-tolerant and scalable distributed services and systems

Benefits

Comp & perks

Balanced hybrid work model: 3 days in the office and 2 days at the PayPal office or home workspace
Generous paid time off
Healthcare coverage for you and your family
Resources supporting financial security
Mental health support resources
Annual performance bonus
Equity or other incentive compensation, as applicable
Reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities