Staff Engineer, L6 - Payroll

Personio's intelligent HR platform helps small and medium-sized organizations unlock the power of people by making complicated, time-consuming tasks simple and efficient. Our growing team of 1,800+ Personios across Europe and the US are building user-friendly products that delight our 14,000+ customers and their 1.5 million employees. Ready to make an impact from day one?
Staff Backend Engineer (L6) - Payroll (Munich/Madrid)
About Personio
At Personio, we're on a mission to transform HR and payroll technology, making it seamless and scalable for businesses across Europe. As one of the fastest-growing tech companies, we're building an all-in-one HR and payroll platform that empowers organizations to put their people first.
The Role: Staff Backend Engineer - Payroll Team
We're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer (L6) to join our Payroll & Taxes and Social Insurance teams, based in Munich (preferred) or Madrid. This role is focused on building and optimizing the business logic for payroll processing, ensuring accurate calculations and seamless data input workflows.
About the Payroll team:
Our team is responsible for:

• Complex payroll calculations to ensure accurate salary, leave, and absence processing.
• Data input workflows that power financial calculations across multiple payroll components.
• Ensuring compliance with tax and social insurance regulations, working closely with compliance experts.
• Coordinating efforts across three interconnected teams to ensure a unified payroll processing experience.
• Providing technical leadership and guidance, acting as a representative of the team to other stakeholders and platform teams.

What You'll Do:

• Develop High-Impact Payroll Solutions - Design and implement scalable, efficient backend systems for payroll processing and automation.
• Hands-On Development - Write clean, maintainable, and performant code using Kotlin, gRPC APIs, and AWS.
• Enhance Regulatory Compliance - Work closely with compliance experts to ensure payroll calculations align with tax and social insurance regulations.
• Cross-Team Collaboration - Coordinate across three interconnected teams, ensuring technical alignment and synchronization.
• Technical Leadership - Mentor engineers, drive best practices, and contribute to the strategic direction of the payroll domain.
• Stakeholder Engagement - Represent the team in discussions with product managers, platform teams, and regulatory specialists.
• Optimize System Performance - Improve database queries, backend workflows, and API performance to enhance payroll processing speed and accuracy.

What We're Looking For:

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience, preferably in JVM-based languages (Kotlin preferred, Java or Scala also valued).
• Strong understanding of backend architecture, distributed systems, and API design.
• Experience with data-intensive applications, regulatory systems, and financial calculations.
• Ability to deeply understand complex regulatory mechanisms while maintaining a product-focused mindset.
• Comfortable spending 50-60% of time coding and 40-50% collaborating with product managers, compliance experts, and engineers.
• Strong leadership skills, able to navigate technical debates, mentor engineers, and drive decision-making.
• Fluency in German is highly preferred, as regulatory requirements need to be read and interpreted.
• Munich-based candidates are strongly preferred, Madrid is a secondary option.

Why Join Personio?

• Competitive compensation package including salary, benefits, and pre-IPO equity.
• 28 days of paid vacation (+ extra days after 2 and 4 years).
• 2 fully paid Impact Days per year for social initiatives.
• Generous parental leave, mental health support, and sabbatical opportunities.
• Flexible hybrid work model (50% remote, 50% in-office).
• Annual personal development budget for professional growth.
• Engaging team culture with regular events and company-wide initiatives.

Interview Process:

• HR Call with Stephen to assess team fit (30 mins)
• Hiring Manager screen with Engineering Leader (45 min)
• Live coding (60 mins)
• System Design (60 mins)
• Culture Interview with cross-functional team members. (30 mins)
• Department Interview with department lead (30 mins)

Ready to make an impact? Join us in shaping the future of payroll tech at Personio!