# Engineering Director, Payments Platform **Company:** [Airwallex](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/airwallex) 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. **Role:** Engineering Manager **Seniority:** Director **Locations:** UK - London **Salary:** 280000–420000 USD [Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/airwallex/26ef522b-4233-4235-8f27-5782fecf3992) Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/airwallex/engineering-director-payments-platform-26ef522b --- ## 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. ## Requirements ### education - {"name":"Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field","description":"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."} ### technical - {"name":"Software Architecture and System Design","description":"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."} - {"name":"Payment Systems and Financial Infrastructure","description":"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."} - {"name":"High-Reliability System Design","description":"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."} - {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps","description":"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."} ### experience - {"name":"10+ Years Software Engineering Experience","description":"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."} - {"name":"5+ Years Engineering Leadership Experience","description":"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."} - {"name":"Large-Scale Systems Architecture","description":"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."} - {"name":"Fintech or Regulated Industry Experience","description":"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."} - {"name":"Fast-Paced Growth Environment","description":"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 - {"name":"People Leadership and Team Management","description":"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."} - {"name":"Strategic Thinking and Product Partnering","description":"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."} - {"name":"Distributed Systems Design","description":"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."} - {"name":"Project and Program Management","description":"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."} - {"name":"Cross-Functional Communication","description":"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."} - {"name":"Architectural Decision-Making","description":"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 - {"name":"Open Banking and API-First Platform Experience","description":"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."} - {"name":"Multi-Region and Multi-Market Scaling","description":"Hands-on experience scaling engineering systems and organizations across multiple geographic regions and markets. Understanding of region-specific regulations, compliance requirements, and localization challenges."} - {"name":"Data-Driven Decision Making","description":"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."} - {"name":"AI and Automation for Engineering Productivity","description":"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."} - {"name":"Venture-Backed Hypergrowth Experience","description":"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 ### tools - {"name":"AWS","description":"Cloud infrastructure platform providing compute, networking, storage, and managed services essential for running global payment platforms with multi-region redundancy."} - {"name":"Docker","description":"Containerization technology for packaging services and ensuring consistent deployment across development, testing, and production environments."} - {"name":"Prometheus and Grafana","description":"Observability stack for metrics collection and visualization, critical for monitoring payment systems, detecting anomalies, and maintaining system health."} - {"name":"ELK Stack","description":"Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana for centralized logging and log analysis, essential for debugging distributed payment processing systems and audit trails."} - {"name":"Datadog or New Relic","description":"Application performance monitoring platforms for real-time visibility into system performance, identifying bottlenecks, and ensuring optimal user experience."} ### others - {"name":"Distributed Systems Principles","description":"Deep understanding of CAP theorem, eventual consistency, consensus algorithms, and trade-offs in distributed system design for payment processing at scale."} - {"name":"Payment Processing Protocols","description":"Knowledge of payment processing standards, FIX protocol, SWIFT, ISO 8583, and modern API-based payment schemes for global transaction routing and settlement."} - {"name":"Security and Compliance","description":"Expertise in encryption, tokenization, PCI-DSS compliance, regulatory requirements (KYC, AML), and security practices for handling sensitive financial data."} - {"name":"API Gateway and Rate Limiting","description":"Architectural patterns and implementation of API gateways, authentication mechanisms, rate limiting, and throttling for managing transaction volume and ensuring platform stability."} ### databases - {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Open-source relational database commonly used in fintech for transaction management, ACID compliance, and financial data integrity with strong consistency guarantees."} - {"name":"Cassandra","description":"NoSQL distributed database designed for high-availability and partition tolerance, suitable for storing transaction logs and audit trails at massive scale."} - {"name":"Redis","description":"In-memory data store used for high-speed caching, rate limiting, and session management in payment platforms handling millions of concurrent transactions."} - {"name":"DynamoDB","description":"Managed NoSQL database on AWS providing serverless scalability, suitable for temporary state management and event logs in global payment systems."} ### languages - {"name":"Java","description":"Enterprise-grade language commonly used for building high-throughput, low-latency payment processing systems and financial infrastructure at scale."} - {"name":"Go","description":"Modern systems programming language with excellent concurrency support, increasingly popular for cloud infrastructure, microservices, and high-performance backend systems in fintech."} - {"name":"Python","description":"Versatile language used for data processing, analytics, infrastructure automation, and backend services in financial technology organizations."} - {"name":"TypeScript/JavaScript","description":"Full-stack language increasingly used for modern web services, APIs, and real-time transaction monitoring dashboards in fintech platforms."} ### frameworks - {"name":"Spring/Spring Boot","description":"Enterprise Java framework commonly used for building scalable, high-throughput financial services and payment processing backends with extensive ecosystem support."} - {"name":"gRPC","description":"High-performance RPC framework essential for building efficient microservices communication in distributed payment systems handling millions of transactions."} - {"name":"Apache Kafka","description":"Distributed event streaming platform critical for building real-time payment processing pipelines, event sourcing architectures, and ensuring message ordering and reliability."} - {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform for managing microservices deployment, scaling, and operations across multiple regions and availability zones in global payment infrastructure."} ## Benefits ### benefits - {"name":"Competitive Equity Compensation","description":"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."} - {"name":"Professional Development and Learning","description":"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."} - {"name":"Global Career Mobility","description":"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."} - {"name":"Impact-Driven Role","description":"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."} - {"name":"Comprehensive Health and Wellness","description":"Competitive health insurance coverage, wellness programs, mental health support, and preventative care benefits. Flexible work arrangements and emphasis on work-life balance."} - {"name":"Flexible Work Arrangements","description":"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."} ## Compensation - **max:** 420000 - **min:** 280000 - **currency:** USD - **stockOptions:** true ## Interview process ### steps - {"name":"Initial Recruiter Screening","description":"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."} - {"name":"Technical Leadership Assessment","description":"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."} - {"name":"People Leadership Discussion","description":"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."} - {"name":"Product and Strategy Alignment","description":"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."} - {"name":"Executive Leadership Interview","description":"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 description ## **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](https://www.airwallex.com/us/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_](http://airwallex.com) _email address. Please apply only through_ [_careers.airwallex.com_](http://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.