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Principal Staff Software Engineer

PayPal

PayPal

Software Engineering
San Jose, CA, USA
USD 120,300-287,100 / year + Equity
Posted on Mar 2, 2025
The Company
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 Description Summary:
The role of the Principal Staff Software Engineer will include leading the payments cloud modernization journey, migrating on-prem microservices and databases to public cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure).

Job Description:
Overview:

  • Define and implement best practices for cloud-native architectures including Kubernetes, serverless, and distributed systems.
  • Architect highly available, resilient, and scalable payment services in the cloud.
  • Optimize performance, security, and cost-efficiency of cloud-based services.
  • Develop strategies for migrating stateful and stateless services, ensuring data consistency and zero-downtime deployment.
  • Modernize databases (e.g., Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, NoSQL) and implement multi-region, multi-cloud strategies.
  • Partner with SRE, DevOps, and Security teams to define SLAs, resilience strategies, and cloud governance policies.
  • Write clean, functional code for the front-end and back-end features.
  • Show pride of ownership and strive for excellence in everything you do.
  • Mentor engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, automation, and technical excellence.


Required Skills:

  • 15+ years of experience in software development, with 5+ years of cloud experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) in designing and implementing scalable, fault tolerant components.
  • Hands-on experience in migrating microservices & databases from on-prem to cloud in large-scale, high-traffic environments.
  • Deep understanding of distributed systems, service mesh, event-driven architecture, and database sharing strategies.
  • Experience in real-time payment processing, payment gateways, or fintech platforms is a strong plus.
  • Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, Go, Python, or Node.js.
  • Strong understanding of security best practices, encryption, and compliance (PCI-DSS, GDPR, SOC2).
  • Experience with Continuous Integration and Delivery, deploying in containers like Dockers, Kubernetes
  • Proven experience delivering complex software projects and solutions effectively through Agile methodologies on a regular release cadence.
  • Expertise on performance testing and tuning
  • Knowledge of modern messaging platforms (e.g. ActiveMQ, Kafka, SQS / SNS)


Required Soft Skills
  • Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers across teams, particularly guiding junior and mid-level engineers working on the cloud modernization initiative.
  • Foster a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and engineering excellence within the organization.
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills to effectively engage with engineering, product, compliance, and executive leadership.
  • Strong customer focus, ownership, urgency, and drive to lead cloud modernization with minimal disruption to mission-critical payment services.
  • Proven ability to work cross-functionally across engineering, DevOps, infrastructure, security, and compliance teams to drive end-to-end modernization efforts.


PayPal is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

Actual Compensation is based on various factors including but not limited to work location, and relevant skills and experience.

The total compensation for this practice may include an annual performance bonus (or other incentive compensation, as applicable), equity, and medical, dental, vision, and other benefits. For more information, visit https://www.paypalbenefits.com.

The U.S. national annual pay range for this role is $120300 to $287100

For the majority of employees, PayPal's balanced hybrid work model offers 3 days in the office for effective in-person collaboration and 2 days at your choice of either the PayPal office or your home workspace, ensuring that you equally have the benefits and conveniences of both locations.

Our 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

Who We Are:

To learn more about our culture and community visit https://about.pypl.com/who-we-are/default.aspx

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

PayPal provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. In addition, PayPal will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are unable to submit an application because of incompatible assistive technology or a disability, please contact us at paypalglobaltalentacquisition@paypal.com.

Belonging at PayPal:

Our employees are central to advancing our mission, and we strive to create an environment where everyone can do their best work with a sense of purpose and belonging. Belonging at PayPal means creating a workplace with a sense of acceptance and security where all employees feel included and valued. We are proud to have a diverse workforce reflective of the merchants, consumers, and communities that we serve, and we continue to take tangible actions to cultivate inclusivity and belonging at PayPal.

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please Join our Talent Community.

We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don’t hesitate to apply.

REQ ID R0119949