The Company
PayPal 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.
We 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.
We 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.
Our 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 – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.
Job Summary:
PayPal is seeking a Principal Data Engineer with 15+ years of experience to lead the design and evolution of enterprise-wide data architecture. This role sits at the intersection of data engineering, analytics, instrumentation, and governance — driving how PayPal captures, structures, and democratizes data across its global payments platform.Job Description:
Essential Responsibilities:
Minimum Qualifications:
Additional Responsibilities & Preferred Qualifications:
Job Summary
We are seeking aPrincipal Data Architectto lead the data strategy, instrumentation standards, and data quality transformation for the Checkout organization. This is one of the most strategically critical individual contributor roles inCheckoutEngineering — a high-visibility position that demands both deep technical authority and the executive influence to shape how hundreds of engineers and product managers think about and work with data.
The ideal candidate has an establishedtrack recordof driving large-scale data transformations as an individual contributor in complex, matrixed organizations. Youdon'tmanage through headcount — you lead through technical credibility, organizational influence, and the ability to build durable systems and standards that outlast any single initiative.
Your Way to Impact
You willestablishthe data architecture foundation that enables the Branded Checkout organization to move from reactive data consumption to proactive, insight-driven product development. By creating a Center of Excellence for data instrumentation,a canonicalData Dictionary, and AI-powered governance tooling, you will directly accelerate PayPal's ability to experiment faster, make better product decisions, and democratize data access across one of the company's most critical engineering organizations.
Your Day to Day
In this role you will:
1.Establisha Center of Excellence for InstrumentationDefineand operationalize instrumentation guidelines for the Branded Checkout organization. Set the standard for how events, signals, and behavioral data are captured across web, mobile, and backend surfaces. Create a governance model that scales across squads without creating bottlenecks.
2. Own and Drive the Branded Checkout Data DictionaryDesign, build, andmaintainthe authoritative Data Dictionary for the XO organization —a single sourceof truth for datadefinitions, ownership, lineage, and quality standards. Ensure the Dictionary is living, versioned, and integrated into engineering workflows.
3. Drive Engineering and Product Adoption of Data StandardsPartnerwith engineering leadership, product management, and data consumers to drive broad adoption of instrumentation best practices and the Data Dictionary. Influence without authority at scale — across dozens of squads and multiple product verticals within Checkout.
4. Partner with Data & Analytics to Develop Instrumentation StandardsWorkclosely with the Data and Analytics organization to co-develop organization-wide instrumentation standards. Collaborate with peer architects to incorporate these standards into shared frameworks and platform tooling, making compliance the path of least resistance.
5. Co-Architect Agentic Solutions for Instrumentation RemediationPartner with other architects to design and deploy agentic AI solutions that systematicallyidentify, prioritize, and remediate existing instrumentation that falls outside established standards — bringing the historical codebase into compliance at machine speed.
6. Develop AI-Powered PR Review Agents for Instrumentation GovernanceDesign and implement AI agents that automatically review pull requests for instrumentation completeness, correctness, and adherence to standards. Establish an automated gatekeeping mechanism that embeds data quality into the software delivery lifecycle.
7. Build a Self-Sustaining Data Culture in Engineering and ProductDesign enablement frameworks, reference architectures, and self-service tooling that empower engineering and product teams toleveragedata and run experiments independently — reducing dependency on the Data & Analytics team and accelerating the pace of learning across XO.
8. Democratize Data Adoption Across Branded Checkout