Principal Security Engineer

The posting, as Rippling wrote it

About Rippling
Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @ Rippling.com addresses.

About the role

Rippling is looking for a Principal Security Engineer to tackle some of the most complex, cross-cutting security challenges across our technical ecosystem. Reporting directly to the CSO, you will lead high-impact initiatives that span security, AI, infrastructure, identity, developer experience, internal tooling, and third-party SaaS systems.

This is a deeply technical, hands-on role for an engineer who can move between architecture and implementation. You will take ambiguous security problems that cross organizational and technical boundaries, develop a cohesive technical strategy, and work alongside engineering teams to build and ship the solution.

"We’re looking for someone who has designed and delivered large-scale systems, can influence technical direction across multiple teams, and still wants to build. You’ll help redefine and implement parts of Rippling’s security program to take advantage of AI and agentic systems, applying these technologies to security controls, automation, and decision-making in ways that weren’t previously possible."

• Replace RBAC for internal system access with a minimal privilege, JIT system using real-time agentic inspection of raw data from the employee graph, system alerts, incidents, customer requests, and support tickets
• Integrate this JIT access control system into all third-party tools (e.g. SAAS applications) used by Rippling, and working with the product team to enable this for Rippling customers as well
• Design and build robust inter-service isolation and sandboxing, as well as AuthN/Z to manage product attack surface, 0-day blast radius, and limit lateral movement

This role is based in San Francisco.

About the Team

Security at Rippling is responsible for protecting a platform that sits at the center of how companies manage their workforce, systems, and data. Our work touches nearly every part of Rippling's technical environment and requires close partnership with teams across Engineering, Infrastructure, Developer Experience, IT, and Product.

As a Principal Securi
[…]
ion decisions.

• Strong technical judgment and the ability to make pragmatic tradeoffs between security, scalability, developer experience, and business needs.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior technical stakeholders without relying on organizational authority.
• High degree of ownership, urgency, and bias toward action in ambiguous environments.
• Experience and trajectory matter more to us than a specific number of years, but candidates will have 10+ years experience solving complex engineering and security problems.

Additional Information
Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics, Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email accommodations@rippling.com

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here .

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.