PayPal Sr Software Engineer 

United States, California, San Jose 

233457768

This job delivers complete solutions spanning all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). It involves advising management on project-level issues, guiding junior engineers, operating with little supervision, and applying knowledge of technical best practices.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Delivers complete solutions spanning all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) (design, implementation, testing, delivery and operations), based on definitions from more senior roles.
• Advises immediate management on project-level issues
• Guides junior engineers
• Operates with little day-to-day supervision, making technical decisions based on knowledge of internal conventions and industry best practices
• Applies knowledge of technical best practices in making decisions

Expected Qualifications:

• 3+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.

Additional Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of backend services and distributed systems supporting experimentation workflows at PayPal scale.
• Build fault-tolerant, high-performance APIs and data services that integrate with BigQuery and other analytics platforms.
• Drive end-to-end ownership of backend features, from architecture and implementation to deployment and operational support.
• Partner with Product, Data Science, and ML teams to evolve experimentation methodologies, scorecarding, and analytics integrations.
• Mentor engineers, conducting design/code reviews and fostering best practices for backend and distributed system development.
• Troubleshoot complex distributed system issues and implement sustainable, long-term fixes.
• Contribute to scaling experimentation capabilities across PayPal’s ecosystem (mobile, web, backend services).
• Identify platform gaps and propose backend-focused enhancements that improve reliability, scalability, and developer experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong focus on backend development and distributed systems.
• Expertise in one or more backend programming languages (Java, Python, or equivalent), with experience designing high-throughput, low-latency services.
• Hands-on experience with BigQuery or other large-scale data warehouses, including SQL proficiency, data modeling, and performance tuning.
• Experience with distributed data pipelines, streaming/messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, Spark), or large-scale analytics platforms.
• Deep understanding of system design trade-offs for scalability, resiliency, and fault tolerance.
• Proficiency in cloud-native architectures, microservices, and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with experimentation platforms, A/B testing frameworks, or measurement systems.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and driving technical improvements in backend systems.
• Excellent communication skills with ability to partner across product, engineering, and data science functions.
• Passion for building robust backend platforms that enable data-driven decision making at enterprise scale.

Travel Percent:

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 .

The US national annual pay range for this role is $123,500 to $212,850

Our Benefits:

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please