Staff Software Engineer

About The Team.

The Data Platform group provides data serving infrastructure, including data warehouse analytics, streaming analytics, and search capabilities.

This infrastructure is supported by internally developed distributed services as well as popular open-source technologies such as Trino, Apache Pinot, and Elasticsearch.

The systems owned by the group serve the data needs of thousands of people throughout the company.

The Search India team, newly formed in 2025, is responsible for owning and managing all of Stripe's usage of Elasticsearch.

This responsibility includes a complex ingestion pipeline that uses Kafka, Flink, and Stripe's internal Java-based framework.

The team also manages multiple query layers on top of Elasticsearch and a control plane for the search functionality.

The infrastructure developed by the team powers all of Stripe's public-facing Search API, the merchant-facing Dashboard search, various list views, and numerous internal use cases.

What youll do :

We are seeking a Staff Engineer to be a force multiplier for our new Search India team.

The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of leading impactful, large-scale, cross-team initiatives.

This experience is crucial as you will guide the team on complex Search projects and set the technical direction.

As a tech lead, you will be a key contributor to the Search platform's evolution, directly influencing how Stripe utilizes its data lake for search functionality.

Staff Engineers at Stripe operate with autonomy and are empowered to make high-impact decisions.

You will guide our investments and strategy for Search, ensuring our systems are reliable, secure, and user-friendly.

You will also work closely with other technical staff and senior leadership across Stripe's data platform, with opportunities to significantly influence the company's overall Search and data strategy.

Your work will be critical to accelerating new business opportunities and putting the global economy within everyone's reach, in line with Stripe's mission to "increase the GDP of the internet".

Responsibilities :

- Lead and scope large technical projects that have a significant impact on Stripe's search functionality for both engineers and the business.

- Scrutinize and clearly reason about technology and architecture choices, and in many cases, act as the final decision-maker.

- Arbitrate critical decisions by considering software best practices, Stripe's system realities, and the preferences and concerns of various stakeholders.

- Advise Stripe's leadership team on key technical considerations related to Search, data storage, and access.

- Work closely with the open-source community to identify opportunities to adopt new features, such as those related to Elasticsearch, and contribute back to open-source software.

- Contribute directly to core interface design and write code, while also serving as a role model for software development best practices at Stripe by providing high-quality code reviews to the new Search India team.

- Work effectively across teams and mentor the next generation of technical leaders at Stripe.

- Be empowered to make decisions with a large impact on Stripe and guide the company's investments and strategy for Search.

- Operate autonomously and help drive Stripe forward.

Who you are :

Were looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role.

If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply.

The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum Requirements :

- Have a strong technical background with over 8 years of experience in data platform and backend development.

- Possess deep expertise in building and operating complex, high-performance search systems.

- Have experience with search engines like OpenSearch/ElasticSearch and streaming systems like Kafka and Flink.

- Have served as a technical lead for an organization and can demonstrate broad technical leadership.

- Listen well and internalize the best ideas from all over the organization while also setting a compelling vision that others are excited to get behind.

- Work well cross-functionally and are trusted by coworkers at all levels and across all teams.

Preferred Qualifications :

- Have been a Staff, Principal, or Distinguished Engineer at a top-tier company.

- Have owned the technical roadmap for a Search-related business area.

- Are often cited as the inspiration for engineers that join your teams.

- Even more senior engineers feel that they are able to learn from you.