Staff Engineer, Absences

About Personio

Personio offers a smart HR platform designed to simplify complex and time-intensive processes for small and medium businesses. With a team of 1,500 dedicated professionals, we proudly serve more than 15,000 customers and their 1.5 million employees with user-friendly solutions that enhance HR management.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Staff Engineer to join our Absences team within the Time domain of Personio. This hybrid role, based in Berlin, Munich, or London, requires presence in the office twice a week. You'll play a critical role in shaping the future software for an impactful HR tech sector, solving complex challenges and directly benefiting customers by managing leave and absence systems that influence payroll and compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the definition and implementation of architectural standards and patterns for absence management systems encompassing accruals and entitlements, influencing adoption across teams.
• Develop simple, robust solutions to intricate domain and regulatory challenges, contributing hands-on with significant production code.
• Manage complex, cross-team technical projects from inception through delivery and quality assurance.
• Effectively model and simplify diverse regulatory requirements across markets and companies, like mandatory absence tracking and various entitlement rules.
• Maintain accurate and trustworthy absence data feeding into payroll systems, prioritizing correctness and transparency.
• Enhance operational excellence by defining deployment, monitoring, and maintenance standards to ensure critical service resilience at scale.
• Mentor senior engineers through design reviews, collaborative problem-solving, and by setting a high technical bar.

Required Qualifications

• Proven expertise in backend and distributed systems architecture with a focus on systems where reliability and accuracy are paramount.
• Strong ability to understand and design coherent service integrations and boundaries across teams.
• A preference for simple, reliable architectural solutions over complexity within a highly regulated environment.
• Practical experience balancing leadership responsibilities with active coding and delivery contributions.
• Demonstrated success in leading extended cross-team technical initiatives through to stable production releases.
• Deep knowledge of CI/CD processes, service observability, and operational best practices to maintain dependable production environments.
• Experience mentoring engineers and fostering technical growth within team environments.
• Competency in leveraging AI to augment workflow efficiency, combined with good judgment about its appropriate application.

Why Work at Personio

• We champion diversity and foster an inclusive culture where everyone feels valued and supported.
• This role includes hybrid work flexibility: 2 days per week in the office with remaining days remote or onsite as preferred, plus 20 annual flex days for remote work from other locations.
• Competitive compensation package includes salary, benefits, and pre-IPO equity options.
• 28 paid vacation days, increasing after 2 and 4 years of service.
• One paid Impact Day annually for personal or community projects.
• Supportive family leave policies, mental health resources, and sabbatical opportunities.
• Engaging regular team activities, healthy snacks, drinks, and weekly catered meals in the office.