Engineering Director, Payments Platform

Engineering Manager · Director · Full Time

UK - LondonUSD 280k – 420k1w ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Join Airwallex as an Engineering Director leading the Payments Platform organization. You will oversee critical payment processing, settlement, and global infrastructure systems while managing multiple engineering squads across Singapore, UK, and San Francisco. This role combines hands-on technical architecture expertise with people leadership, requiring 10+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in engineering management, ideally in fintech or regulated environments.

Responsibilities

  • Own End-to-End Payments Platform Strategy: Define and execute the comprehensive strategic vision, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform across payment processing, routing, settlement, reconciliation, and partner integrations. Ensure the platform scales reliably and performantly across global markets while maintaining mission-critical reliability standards for high-volume transaction processing.
  • Build and Scale World-Class Engineering Organization: Manage, coach, and develop multiple Engineering Managers and senior technical leaders across multiple engineering squads. Establish a strong culture of technical ownership, excellence, and continuous improvement. Drive sustainable hiring, talent development, and team growth while mentoring emerging engineering leaders within your organization.
  • Provide Technical Architecture Direction: Lead architectural decision-making for high-volume, mission-critical payment systems handling distributed transactions at scale. Set and enforce high standards for reliability, observability, security, scalability, and developer productivity across the entire Payments Platform infrastructure and codebase.
  • Execute with Speed and Operational Rigor: Define clear OKRs aligned with business objectives and manage execution across multiple concurrent platform initiatives. Hold teams accountable for high-quality outcomes while balancing rapid delivery velocity with long-term platform investments, infrastructure health, and technical debt management.
  • Drive Cross-Functional Alignment for Business Impact: Collaborate deeply with Product Management, Commercial teams, Risk and Compliance functions, and regional engineering leaders. Translate business requirements into platform capabilities that accelerate Airwallex growth, enhance customer experience, ensure regulatory compliance, and support global market expansion.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Software Architecture and System Design

    Deep technical fluency in designing distributed systems, microservices architectures, and platform infrastructure. Expertise in making architectural trade-offs, evaluating scalability approaches, and guiding engineers through complex design decisions.

  • Payment Systems and Financial Infrastructure

    Technical expertise in payment processing systems, transaction routing, settlement mechanisms, reconciliation processes, and financial data flows. Understanding of payment rails, banking APIs, and cross-border transaction complexity.

  • High-Reliability System Design

    Deep expertise in designing systems for high availability, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation. Knowledge of observability practices, monitoring, alerting, and incident response for mission-critical infrastructure.

  • Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps

    Proficiency with modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and containerization technologies. Understanding of infrastructure-as-code, deployment automation, and operational best practices for distributed systems at scale.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field

    Educational foundation in computer science, software engineering, mathematics, or related quantitative discipline. Many successful engineering leaders hold advanced degrees, but experience often supersedes formal education at this level.

Experience

  • 10+ Years Software Engineering Experience

    Extensive background in software engineering spanning multiple technology domains, system designs, and production environments. Track record of building and shipping complex systems that have impacted millions of users and transactions at scale.

  • 5+ Years Engineering Leadership Experience

    Proven experience in engineering management roles, including direct experience managing Engineering Managers, Engineering Leads, and senior technical talent. Demonstrated capability in team scaling, organizational development, and building high-performing engineering cultures.

  • Large-Scale Systems Architecture

    Hands-on experience architecting and operating large-scale distributed systems serving high-volume transaction processing. Expertise in designing systems for performance, reliability, fault tolerance, and horizontal scalability in mission-critical environments.

  • Fintech or Regulated Industry Experience

    Direct experience working in fintech, financial services, payments, or similarly regulated industries where data integrity, correctness, audit trails, compliance, and security are non-negotiable. Understanding of regulatory frameworks, risk management, and compliance requirements in financial systems.

  • Fast-Paced Growth Environment

    Proven track record of succeeding in high-growth, fast-paced environments where rapid iteration, ownership mindset, and execution velocity are core cultural values. Experience scaling engineering organizations through periods of accelerated business growth.

Skills

Required

  • People Leadership and Team Management

    Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain top-tier engineering talent. Skills in coaching, performance management, building psychological safety, and creating transparent communication within engineering organizations. Experience managing managers and fostering leadership pipelines.

  • Strategic Thinking and Product Partnering

    Strong product thinking and ability to partner with Product Management to align technical strategy with business outcomes. Capability to translate business requirements into engineering roadmaps and define success metrics that balance technical health with commercial impact.

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Deep expertise in designing and operating distributed systems, including understanding of consistency models, fault tolerance, eventual consistency, and trade-offs in CAP theorem. Knowledge of system performance optimization at scale.

  • Project and Program Management

    Strong execution discipline with ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives across different teams. Skills in OKR definition, roadmap prioritization, dependency management, and accountability setting. Experience shipping products and features end-to-end.

  • Cross-Functional Communication

    Excellent communication skills with ability to influence and collaborate across engineering, product, compliance, risk, and business functions. Capability to translate between technical and business contexts and build alignment across diverse stakeholder groups.

  • Architectural Decision-Making

    Ability to make sound architectural decisions balancing performance, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and business constraints. Expertise in evaluating technologies, frameworks, and design patterns for specific problem domains and organization stage.

Preferred

  • Open Banking and API-First Platform Experience

    Nice to have

    Background with open banking initiatives, embedded finance platforms, or API-first infrastructure. Experience building platforms where partners integrate payments into their own products and workflows.

  • Multi-Region and Multi-Market Scaling

    Nice to have

    Hands-on experience scaling engineering systems and organizations across multiple geographic regions and markets. Understanding of region-specific regulations, compliance requirements, and localization challenges.

  • Data-Driven Decision Making

    Nice to have

    Strong capability in leveraging data, metrics, and analytics to inform engineering decisions. Experience implementing observability, setting KPIs for platform health, and using data to drive continuous improvement.

  • AI and Automation for Engineering Productivity

    Nice to have

    Experience leveraging AI tools and automation to improve engineering productivity, accelerate development velocity, and solve complex technical problems more efficiently. Knowledge of AI applications in infrastructure and platform engineering.

  • Venture-Backed Hypergrowth Experience

    Nice to have

    Previous experience in venture-backed companies during hypergrowth phases, scaling from dozens to hundreds of engineers. Understanding of startup dynamics, fundraising cycles, and rapid organizational change management.

Tech stack

Languages

JavaGoPythonTypeScript/JavaScript

Frameworks

Spring/Spring BootgRPCApache KafkaKubernetes

Databases

PostgreSQLCassandraRedisDynamoDB

Tools

AWSDockerPrometheus and GrafanaELK StackDatadog or New Relic

Other

Distributed Systems PrinciplesPayment Processing ProtocolsSecurity and ComplianceAPI Gateway and Rate Limiting

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 280,000 – 420,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Competitive Equity Compensation

    Meaningful stock options reflecting seniority level and market rates for director-level engineering leadership roles. Opportunity to share in Airwallex's growth trajectory as a unicorn-valued fintech platform backed by top-tier investors.

  • Professional Development and Learning

    Investment in continuous learning, leadership development programs, conference attendance, and opportunity to work with world-class engineers and architects. Access to specialized training in payments infrastructure and fintech domain expertise.

  • Global Career Mobility

    Flexibility to work across Airwallex's 27 offices globally. Option to relocate or establish presence in Singapore, UK, or San Francisco. Exposure to international markets and diverse engineering cultures within the organization.

  • Impact-Driven Role

    Direct influence on strategic decisions affecting 250,000+ businesses worldwide. Build infrastructure supporting billions in payment volume. Real ownership of product direction and engineering culture at a hypergrowth fintech company.

  • Comprehensive Health and Wellness

    Competitive health insurance coverage, wellness programs, mental health support, and preventative care benefits. Flexible work arrangements and emphasis on work-life balance.

  • Flexible Work Arrangements

    Ability to work remotely with optional office presence in your chosen location. Flexible hours supporting individual productivity and personal commitments while meeting team collaboration needs.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Recruiter Screening

    Conversation with Airwallex recruiting team to understand your background, motivations, and alignment with role expectations. Discussion of compensation expectations, location preferences, and timeline for joining.

  2. 02

    Technical Leadership Assessment

    Deep-dive conversation with engineering leadership team exploring your technical architecture expertise, experience with payment systems or distributed infrastructure, and approach to making complex technical decisions.

  3. 03

    People Leadership Discussion

    Conversation focused on your team-building philosophy, management style, track record of developing engineering talent, and approaches to creating high-performing, healthy engineering cultures at scale.

  4. 04

    Product and Strategy Alignment

    Discussion with Product and executive stakeholders on strategic thinking, understanding of Airwallex's market position, vision for payments platform evolution, and ability to partner cross-functionally.

  5. 05

    Executive Leadership Interview

    Final round with executive sponsor or Chief Technology Officer to assess executive presence, organizational thinking, and alignment with company culture and long-term strategic vision.

Full posting

Original listing.

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 250,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

 

Attributes We Value

We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.

 

About the Team

Payments Platform at Airwallex is where global payment complexity is turned into infrastructure that helps businesses accept and move money more simply.

We build the platform behind how payments are accepted and processed across markets, helping businesses embed payments into their workflows, improve conversion, and operate with less friction. The work supports a core growth lever for Airwallex: payment experiences that are reliable, scalable, and easy to use.

What makes this team distinct is the challenge at the heart of it: balancing performance, reliability, local complexity, and commercial outcomes in the same system. Small improvements can materially affect customer experience and conversion, while failures are immediately visible.

You'll do well here if you enjoy product infrastructure with clear business impact. This team suits engineers who are thoughtful, pragmatic, and motivated by making complex problems feel simple to customers.

If you want to build the platform that makes payments work seamlessly for businesses around the world, this is the team at the center of that mission.

What you’ll do

As an Engineering Director, you will the teams that are responsible for building and operating critical components of the Payments Platform. This role combines people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership.

This role can be based in Singapore, United Kingdom and San Francisco, United States.

Responsibilities:

  • Define and execute the Payments Platform vision: Own the end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform — covering payment processing, routing, settlement, reconciliation, and partner integrations — ensuring it scales reliably across global markets.

  • Lead and grow a world-class engineering organization: Manage, coach, and develop Engineering Managers and senior technical talent across multiple squads, building a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement while driving sustainable hiring and team growth.

  • Drive technical architecture and platform excellence: Provide architectural direction for high-volume, mission-critical payment systems, setting high standards for reliability, observability, security, scalability, and developer productivity across the platform.

  • Deliver with speed and operational rigor: Set clear OKRs, manage execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, and hold teams accountable for high-quality outcomes — balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform investments and operational health.

  • Collaborate cross-functionally to align technology with business outcomes: Partner closely with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional engineering leaders to ensure platform capabilities directly support Airwallex's growth, customer experience, and regulatory requirements.

Who you are

We are looking for engineering leaders with deep technical expertise and a strong track record of impact.

Minimum qualifications:

  • 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.

  • Demonstrated experience in people management, including managing Engineering Managers or Engineering Leads, with a track record of building and scaling high-performing teams.

  • Strong product thinking and the ability to partner closely with Product Management to define roadmaps, prioritize delivery, and drive business outcomes.

  • Deep technical fluency in software architecture and system design, with experience guiding architectural decisions for large-scale, complex distributed systems.

  • Proven ability to operate in fast-paced, high-growth environments where incremental improvement, ownership, and speed of execution are valued.

  • Experience in fintech, financial services, payments, or a similarly regulated industry where correctness and data integrity are critical.

 

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

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