Staff Software Engineer, Identity & Trust

Ripple•San Francisco, CA

5h•Hybrid

About The Position

At Ripple, we’re building a world where value moves like information does today. It’s big, it’s bold, and we’re already doing it. Through our crypto solutions for financial institutions, businesses, governments and developers, we are improving the global financial system and creating greater economic fairness and opportunity for more people, in more places around the world. And we get to do the best work of our career and grow our skills surrounded by colleagues who have our backs. If you’re ready to see your impact and unlock incredible career growth opportunities, join us, and build real world value. THE WORK: At Ripple, The Identity and Trust Platform is proposed as the foundation to enable the "One Ripple" vision. Its goal is to solve identity problems across all products and acquisitions by establishing a single system of record for customers, users and their identities. This platform will decouple operational identity from legacy systems, unify compliance and verification context (such as shared KYB readiness), and define a shared entitlements layer for consistent product access. We are looking for Staff Engineers who are passionate about solving complex, foundational problems, eager to make a high impact by solving the identity and trust challenges across a global financial network, and are driven to design the scalable platform that will define the unified customer experience for all of Ripple's current and future products. The Identity and Trust Platform is foundational to building customer trust and defining the single system of record. As the technical anchor for a small, high-impact team, you will: Build the Foundation for 'One Ripple': Establish the Identity Platform as the single system of record, decoupling operational identity from legacy systems to enable a unified experience across all Ripple products (Payments, Custody, Stablecoins, Ripple Prime, and others). Drive Strategic Decoupling: Own the critical migration of core identity logic out of legacy systems, eliminating years of technical debt and preparing a path to retire them. Define the Future of Trust: Design and build the shared entitlements layer and unified compliance context (e.g., shared KYB readiness) to ensure consistent, secure product access for all customers. Scale and Mentor: Serve as a technical anchor, setting architectural direction, championing engineering excellence, and mentoring engineers to grow a high-performing, foundational platform team. This isn’t just about writing code — it’s about designing how Ripple’s operational identity platform will work for years to come!

Requirements

8+ years experience in Software Engineering, with a significant focus on backend systems.
Deep, hands-on backend engineering experience building and operating modern, cloud-native, and highly-available distributed systems at scale.
Proven track record designing and delivering foundational, large-scale systems in complex, regulated environments.
Expert-level skills in API design and integration (e.g., REST and/or gRPC), with a focus on defining clear, reusable service contracts.
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS).
Ability to strategically navigate and reduce technical debt while driving significant business value and high-leverage migration efforts.
Strong technical leadership skills: proven ability to set architectural direction, mentor high-performing engineers, and influence critical, cross-team decisions across an organization.

Nice To Haves

Experience with our current stack: Java + Spring Boot. We encourage candidates from other robust backend stacks (Go, Kotlin, C#, Python, Rust, etc.) who can quickly learn JVM technologies.
Experience with event-driven architecture (Kafka, SNS/SQS, etc.), crucial for building a decoupled and resilient platform.
Domain knowledge in FinTech, RegTech, KYC/KYB, identity verification, or compliance-heavy systems.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and development of distributed, cloud-native backend services that power the Identity and Trust Platform across Ripple’s product suite.
Define and implement the foundational data model and APIs that serve as the single system of record for customers, entities, and users.
Drive the strategic migration of core identity and customer lifecycle logic out of legacy systems into resilient, observable, and Identity Platform-first services.
Design and build the core platform capabilities, including the unified entitlements layer and shared compliance context, to ensure consistent and secure access across all products.
Partner with Product, Compliance, and other engineering teams to define and champion standard integration patterns and contracts for the platform.
Champion engineering excellence in architecture, code quality, testing, and operational practices.

Benefits

The opportunity to build in a fast-paced start-up environment with experienced industry leaders
A learning environment where you can dive deep into the latest technologies and make an impact. A professional development budget to support other modes of learning.
Thrive in an environment where no matter what race, ethnicity, gender, origin, or culture they identify with, every employee is a respected, valued, and empowered part of the team.
In-office collaboration for moments that matter is important to our culture, and we give managers and teams the flexibility to decide which 10+ days a month they come in.
Bi-weekly all-company meeting - business updates and ask me anything style discussion with our Leadership Team
We come together for moments that matter which include team offsites, team bonding activities, happy hours and more!
Competitive salary, bonuses, and equity
Competitive benefits that cover physical and mental healthcare, retirement, family forming, and family support
Employee giving match
Mobile phone stipend
R&R days so you can rest and recharge
Generous wellness reimbursement and weekly onsite & virtual programming
Generous vacation policy - work with your manager to take time off when you need it
Industry-leading parental leave policies. Family planning benefits.
Catered lunches, fully-stocked kitchens with premium snacks/beverages, and plenty of fun events