Staff Software Engineer, Storage Abstractions

Details

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. The Storage Abstractions (STAX) team builds the software layer through which Stripe services access stored data. The team owns database SDKs used by hundreds of Ruby and Java services to read and write data safely, reliably, and efficiently without requiring knowledge of the underlying database, routing, or operational complexity.

The team provides stable interfaces and safeguards at the storage layer, helping teams build products with confidence while enabling Stripe’s data architecture to evolve. It is also designing for AI agents as customers of this foundation, making storage capabilities discoverable, interoperable, and safe to use across languages and storage backends.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for Stripe’s storage access and lead high-impact initiatives from strategy through delivery.
• Evolve storage abstractions so service teams can use consistent and reliable capabilities across languages, API versions, and storage backends.
• Design stable interfaces and guardrails that improve data correctness, reliability, observability, and performance by default.
• Treat AI agents as customers by building agent-accessible SDKs, frameworks, and developer workflows that enable safe, effective use of storage infrastructure.
• Partner with senior leaders, engineers, product teams, and core infrastructure teams to solve cross-organizational data architecture challenges.
• Mentor engineers and raise the bar for technical design, execution, and operational excellence across the team.

Requirements

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 5+ years leading technical strategy and delivery for complex, cross-team engineering initiatives.
• Experience leading engineering teams working on API design, SDKs, abstractions, frameworks, or client libraries, such as internal or external developer products.
• Experience designing reliable distributed systems with a focus on data correctness, performance, and safe evolution of critical infrastructure.
• Experience designing developer infrastructure for AI or agentic workflows and helping define a technical direction for their use.
• Demonstrated customer-centricity, with a track record of understanding user needs and delivering simple, reliable experiences for internal or external customers.
• Hands-on experience building infrastructure and products for internal or external customers.
• Proven track record of delivering pragmatic solutions that accelerate business growth.
• Ability to move between high-level discussions and detailed coding.
• Ability to work with a high level of autonomy and responsibility.
• Clear and persuasive writing and in-person communication skills.
• Strong problem-solving skills, critical thinking, determination, and a growth mindset.
• Ability to work effectively with a diverse group of people and contribute to psychological safety for team members and partners.
• Proficiency in at least one of Java, Ruby, or Python.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with MongoDB or other large-scale storage systems, such as DynamoDB, Elasticsearch, RocksDB, or relational databases.
• Experience guiding adoption of a shared developer platform across a large internal engineering organization.
• Experience developing observability and operational tooling to help platform users diagnose and resolve issues.
• Experience in financial technology or another environment where data correctness and reliability are especially important.
• Experience influencing product and organizational decisions with senior leaders and broad stakeholder groups.
• Experience leading partially remote and distributed teams.
• Experience managing rigorous incident response processes and on-call rotations.

Deep expertise in every listed dimension is not required, but genuine curiosity about less familiar areas is important.