Principal Software Engineer, SMB &FS

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 Summary:

Own the technical vision and execution for platforms powering SMBs such as merchant payments, settlement & reconciliation, payouts, merchant services and developer experiences, capital/working‑capital lending, and embedded finance. Lead the multi‑year evolution from on‑prem to cloud‑native architectures. Architect AI‑native commerce capabilities—including agentic commerce (autonomous, tool‑using AI that reasons and acts across buyer–merchant journeys), real‑time risk/underwriting, and intelligent payment orchestration. Operate across org boundaries to set platform standards, influence executive strategy, and increase engineering leverage at scale.

Job Description:

Essential Responsibilities:

• Increases results & effectiveness of all software engineers in a large domain
• Sets the technology roadmap for a domain
• Adapts their role to the need, selecting the most effective means of realizing their technical goals
• Provides advice and counsel to senior executives within PayPal, influencing the development of multi-year business strategies
• Exercises wide latitude in determining objectives and approaches to assignments and takes initiative to achieve results
• Handles ambiguous and unfamiliar situations and uses creativity to deliver decisive resolutions
• Uses discovery & exploratory research, not being limited to technical domains, to make successful decisions
• Identifies themes & trends that span projects and teams, and finds broadly impactful opportunities for improvement
• Uses professional savvy to determine when industry-standard solutions can be adopted, versus when a problem space warrants a novel solution (“build/buy”)
• Mentor others as a means of propagating technical influence, and to enhance the performance of their organization

Minimum Qualifications:

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

• Additional Responsibilities:
  • Own the multi‑year architecture and migration strategy moving SMB & FS platforms from on‑prem to cloud‑native; define milestones, re-architect for cloud-native, and land secure, compliant, highly available services.
  • Define platform standards (APIs, contracts, versioning, idempotency, SLOs, operational readiness) that unify payments, risk, onboarding, settlement, reconciliation, payouts, and capital experiences.
  • Partner with product, risk, compliance, data, and finance to align technical choices to business outcomes; translate complex trade‑offs into clear, executive‑ready decisions.
  • Grow Staff+ engineering capability: lead architecture reviews, create reusable frameworks and reference designs, and raise the quality bar across multiple teams.
• Preferred Qualifications:
  • Track record designing and shipping large‑scale, low‑latency distributed systems in payments/fintech or similarly regulated, high‑availability domains.
  • Led cloud migrations of mission‑critical systems to cloud (GCP expertise a plus); depth in container orchestration, service mesh, infrastructure‑as‑code, and automated delivery.
  • Hands‑on experience building and operating production AI/ML-powered capabilities for commerce.
  • Deep understanding of the merchant payments stack: acquiring/facilitation, tokenization, checkout, authorization/capture, disputes/chargebacks, settlement & reconciliation, payouts.
  • Strong security and compliance background (PCI DSS, SOC2, PSD2/SCA); experience architecting for auditability, explainability, and controls.
  • Expertise in event‑driven architecture and data platforms (e.g., Kafka/Pub/Sub, stream processing, feature stores, real‑time analytics) supporting decisioning at scale.
  • Exceptional written and verbal influence across org boundaries and up to C‑suite; crisp design docs and decision records that drive alignment.
  • Proven mentorship of Staff/Principal engineers and effectiveness establishing technical standards and communities of practice.
  • API platform experience (REST/gRPC/GraphQL), SDK/developer‑experience mindset, and a bias for cost‑aware, operable designs (FinOps).

Subsidiary:

PayPal

Travel Percent:

15

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The base pay for this role will depend on where you work and the relevant experience and expertise you bring. The expected range of pay for this role by location is:

Primary Location | Pay Range:

San Jose, California | ($218,000.00 - $323,950.00 Annually)

Additional Location(s) | Pay Range:

Chicago, Illinois | ($198,000.00 - $294,250.00 Annually) Austin, Texas | ($198,000.00 - $294,250.00 Annually) Scottsdale, Arizona | ($188,000.00 - $279,400.00 Annually)

Additional compensation for this role may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.

PayPal does not charge candidates any fees for courses, applications, resume reviews, interviews, background checks, or onboarding. When making an application directly, we will never ask you to share passwords, one-time passcodes (OTP), or verification codes.  Any such request is a red flag and likely part of a scam. All communication regarding your application will come from official PayPal email domains. If you suspect fraudulent activity, please report it immediately.  To learn more about how to identify and avoid recruitment fraud please visit https://careers.pypl.com/contact-us. 

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 comprehensive, choice-based programs, to support all aspects of personal wellbeing—physical, emotional, and financial—delivering meaningful value where it matters most. We strive to create a flexible, balanced work culture with a holistic approach to benefits, including generous paid time off, healthcare coverage for you and your family, and resources to create financial security and support your mental health.

Who We Are:

Click Here to learn more about our culture and community.

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 [email protected].

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.