Principal Engineer, Cloud Data Infrastructure

Job Summary

This role is the technical authority for Venmo’s data platform infrastructure and performance engineering. The Principal Engineer sets the technology vision, defines architectural direction, and provides deep technical leadership for the teams responsible for mission‑critical databases, data pipelines, messaging systems, caching infrastructure, and performance engineering powering Venmo’s real‑time payment processing at massive scale.

• 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 Pay Pal, 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

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

• Background in financial technology, payments processing, or regulated industries
• Experience supporting transaction processing systems requiring extreme reliability and millisecond‑level response times
• Familiarity with resilience engineering, failure injection testing, and business continuity planning
• Knowledge of modern data pipeline frameworks and real‑time analytics architectures
• History of mentoring and growing senior/staff‑level engineers into technical leadership roles
• Experience integrating AI/ML workflows into data platform infrastructure including vector databases, feature stores, or LLM serving infrastructure

Primary location:
San Jose, California – $ – $ annually

Additional location(s):
Austin, Texas – $ – $ annually

Additional compensation may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation.

• Hybrid work model: 3 days in office, 2 days remote or office choice
• Generous paid time off, healthcare coverage for you and your family, financial security resources, and mental‑health support

Pay Pal 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, Pay Pal 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 paypalgloba