Staff Software Engineer (Node.js/GraphQL)

The Company\n\nPayPal 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. \n\nWe 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.\n\nWe 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. \n\nOur 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 \u2013 and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.\n\nJob Summary:\n\nAbout the Role \n \nAs a Staff Engineer on the PayPal Graph Platform, you will take technical ownership of the Node.js subgraph framework and its supporting modules and tooling. You\u2019ll lead a multi\u2011phase modernization effort, automate SDLC workflows, and drive improvements in performance and observability across the ecosystem. This is a hands\u2011on technical leadership role that combines deep engineering with platform thinking\u2014setting direction, building frameworks, guiding adoption, and raising the bar for reliability and developer velocity. \nYou\u2019ll partner closely with engineering teams across PayPal to define strong defaults, make upgrades safe and repeatable, and establish an opinionated path for building and operating high\u2011quality subgraphs at scale. You will contribute to architectural decision-making, uphold engineering best practices, identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, and advocate for user-centered design principles.\n\nJob Description:\n\nEssential Responsibilities: \n\n * Acts as a project or system leader, coordinating the activities of other engineers on the project or within the system\n * Determines the technical tasks that other engineers will follow\n * Actions result in the achievement of customer, operational, program or service objectives\n * Proactively improves existing structures \u0026 processes\n * Exercises judgement in reconciling diverse and competing priorities (time, quality, complexity risk) to identify optimal solutions to problems\n * Notices patterns and condenses repetition into densely meaningful generalized solutions\n * Collaborates with management to set/improve standards for engineering rigor\n * Trusted to represent PayPal, Inc to the outside world via interactions with partners, customers, or industry organizations\n\n\n\nMinimum Qualifications:\n\n * 5+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor\u2019s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.\n\n\n\nAdditional Responsibilities \u0026 Preferred Qualifications:\n\nWhat You\u2019ll Do \nModernize the Node.js Subgraph Framework\n\n * Redesign framework architecture to align with current Graph platform practices and platform standards.\n * Upgrade core platform dependencies and establish secure, reliable, and performant defaults.\n * Define clear contracts, extension points, and compatibility guarantees for adopters.\n\nAutomate the SDLC Workflow\n\n * Build opinionated scaffolding and CLI tooling to streamline new service creation.\n * Standardize CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Harness) with automated tests, checks, and gated releases.\n * Introduce versioned, reusable modules to enable safe, incremental upgrades without re\u2011scaffolding.\n * Improve Performance \u0026 Observability\n * Establish baseline metrics, tracing, and logging; define SLIs/SLOs and error budget practices.\n * Drive latency and throughput improvements; identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.\n * Provide dashboards, alerts, and runbooks that simplify operations for product teams.\n\nRaise Platform Quality \u0026 Adoption\n\n * Author reference implementations, migration guides, and deprecation policies.\n * Lead cross\u2011team architectural reviews and alignments; champion secure software development.\n * Mentor engineers and influence engineering best practices across the subgraph ecosystem.\n\n \n \nMinimum Qualifications\n\n * 8+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in Node.js and TypeScript.\n * Demonstrated experience building frameworks, libraries, or platform tooling used by multiple teams.\n * Strong knowledge of GraphQL (schema design, subgraph/federation concepts) and service integration.\n * Expertise in CI/CD (ideally Harness or similar), automated testing, and release orchestration.\n * Proven track record in observability (metrics/tracing/logging), performance tuning, and SLO\u2011driven reliability.\n * Understanding of AI tools (Eg. Claude, ChatGPT, etc.)\n\n \n \nPreferred Qualifications\n\n * Platform or framework ownership experience at scale (versioning, semver, deprecation and migration strategies).\n * Tooling for developer experience: CLIs, scaffolding/templates, codemods (e.g., jscodeshift/TS transforms).\n * Monorepo/package management experience (e.g., Nx, Turborepo, workspaces).\n * Familiarity with runtime/edge performance, caching, and resilience patterns (circuit breakers, backpressure).\n * Background in building internal developer platforms or operating production GraphQL services.\n\n\n\nAbout the Team \nThe Consumer Engineering team powers the experiences that millions of PayPal customers use every day to send, spend, and manage their money safely and effortlessly. We design and build reliable, high-performance systems that drive trust and simplicity across PayPal\u2019s global ecosystem. \nOur team partners closely with product, design, and data science to deliver innovative, customer-first solutions that advance PayPal\u2019s mission to make financial services more accessible, inclusive, and empowering for people everywhere.\n\nSubsidiary:\n\nPayPal\n\nTravel Percent:\n\n0\n\n-\n\nThe 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:\n\nPrimary Location | Pay Range:\n\nSan Jose, California | ($176,500.00 - $262,350.00 Annually)\n\nAdditional Location(s) | Pay Range:\n\nNo other locations are assigned to this requisition currently.\n\nAdditional compensation for this role may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.\n\nPayPal 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 \n\nFor the majority of employees, PayPal\u0027s 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.\n\nOur Benefits:\n\nAt PayPal, we\u2019re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can\u2019t do this without our most important asset-you. That\u2019s why we offer comprehensive, choice-based programs, to support all aspects of personal wellbeing\u2014physical, emotional, and financial\u2014delivering 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.\n\nWho We Are:\n\nClick Here to learn more about our culture and community.\n\nCommitment to Diversity and Inclusion \n\nPayPal 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].\n\nBelonging at PayPal:\n\nOur 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.\n\nAny general requests for consideration of your skills, please Join our Talent Community. \n\nWe know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don\u2019t hesitate to apply.\n