Payments
10 PayPal engineering leaders
These ten current and former PayPal engineering leaders include former CTOs for PayPal's Small and Medium Business, Branded Checkout and Blockchain, Crypto, and Digital Currencies work, along with senior vice presidents, vice presidents and directors of engineering. Readers can learn how PayPal builds and runs its payments, checkout, consumer and enterprise platforms.
Professionals to explore
01—10Amit Athavale
LinkedInExperience: VP of Engineering · PayPal
VP of Engineering at PayPal since 2025; the profile says he leads the engineering team building global platforms for the payments lifecycle, including Issuance, Tokenization, Vault, 3DS, Pricing, FX, Money Movement and Payments Data. His other PayPal roles include Sr. Director, Payments Platform Engineering (2021–2025) and Director, Payments Platform Engineering (2019–2021).
Chris Pruett
LinkedInExperience: VP of Engineering · PayPal
VP of Engineering at PayPal since 2025; the profile says he leads the PayPal Consumer Experiences team. His profile also lists SVP of Engineering at Yahoo (2024–2025), Co-Founder and CTO at Jam (2021–2024) and Board Trustee at Hillbrook School since 2020.
Edwin Aoki
LinkedInExperience: Tech Fellow and CTO, Blockchain, Crypto, and Digital Currencies · PayPal
Former Tech Fellow and CTO, Blockchain, Crypto, and Digital Currencies at PayPal (2021–2025), listed at C-Level in the Engineering and Technical department. His other PayPal roles include Vice President and Technology Fellow, Architecture (2011–2021) and Chief Architect (2010–2011), and he has been SVP, Global Technologies at Nasdaq since 2025.
Jon Southall
LinkedInExperience: VP Engineering, Large Enterprise Platforms · PayPal
VP Engineering, Large Enterprise Platforms at PayPal since 2023; the profile says he leads the Large Enterprise Platforms organization, building solutions for global commerce at scale. He was previously Senior Director, Braintree Engineering at PayPal (2021–2023) and Director, Software Engineering at Salesforce (2019–2021).
Papanii Okai
LinkedInExperience: CTO & VP of Engineering Branded Checkout, Merchant SDKs and PayPal Giving · PayPal
Former CTO & VP of Engineering Branded Checkout, Merchant SDKs and PayPal Giving at PayPal (2022–2023). Before that he was CTO & VP of Engineering Branded Checkout (2022) and Head of Engineering Branded Checkout (2022) at PayPal, and he has been EVP of Product Engineering at Rocket since 2024.
Prasanna Annamalai
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director Of Engineering · PayPal
Senior Director Of Engineering at PayPal since 2022, listed at Director level in the Engineering and Technical department; the profile headline ties the role to Growth Markets. His other PayPal roles include Director Of Engineering, Growth Markets (2019–2022) and Senior Manager, Software Development, PayPal India (2016–2019).
Rohit Dudani
LinkedInExperience: VP & Chief Technology Officer, PayPal Small and Medium Business · PayPal
Former VP & Chief Technology Officer, PayPal Small and Medium Business at PayPal (2022–2024), listed at C-Level in the Engineering and Technical department. He has been SVP and Chief Technology Officer, Zelle at Early Warning since 2024, and his profile also lists VP of Engineering and Product at SoFi (2021–2022).
Ryan Prichard
LinkedInExperience: SVP, Small-Medium Business and Financial Services Engineering · PayPal
SVP, Small-Medium Business and Financial Services Engineering at PayPal since 2026, after serving as VP, Small-Medium Business and Financial Services Engineering (2024–2026); the profile says he leads work across SMB and Financial Services including merchant lending, onboarding platforms and strategic partnerships. His other PayPal roles include VP, Consumer Engineering (2024) and VP, CTO Financial Products and Experiences (2022–2024).
Sreenivas R.
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President, Core Platforms · PayPal
Senior Vice President, Core Platforms at PayPal since 2025; the profile says he leads an 1,800-person global engineering organization transforming identity, risk and payments infrastructure. His profile also lists Senior Vice President, Core Services Product, Engineering & Operations at Expedia Group (2021–2024).
Warren Zhang
LinkedInExperience: Director of Engineering · PayPal
Director of Engineering at PayPal since 2023; the profile says he leads the Checkout organization. His profile also lists Senior Engineering Manager at Stripe (2021–2023) and Software Engineering Manager at Google (2017–2021), and its headline also names LinkedIn among his former employers.
Choose the right perspective
Match the leader's platform to your question, since payments infrastructure, checkout, consumer apps and enterprise merchant platforms involve different technical tradeoffs. Check whether each PayPal role is current or ended before asking about recent architecture decisions.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How do you split engineering ownership between shared payments platforms and product teams such as checkout and consumer apps?
- 02What does it take to modernize core payments infrastructure without disrupting live transaction volume?
- 03How should an engineering organization support large enterprise merchants differently from small businesses?
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot and may describe past or present roles. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.
Request a correction or removal