Engineering Lead, GTPN Platform (Seoul)
Engineering Manager · Manager · Full Time
Opens Airwallex's application page
Role
What you'll do.
Lead the architecture, development, and operation of the Global Treasury and Payment Network (GTPN) platform at Airwallex, a regulated AI-native financial operating system serving 675,000+ businesses globally. You'll manage a distributed engineering team spanning multiple international hubs, guide critical platform decisions for high-availability payment systems, and partner with cross-functional stakeholders to deliver scalable infrastructure supporting real-time financial operations. This role requires 8+ years of software engineering experience with strong technical judgment in system architecture, fintech domain knowledge, and proven team leadership in regulated financial environments.
Responsibilities
- Set Technical Direction and Architecture: Define technical strategy for the GTPN platform, guide key architectural decisions, lead design reviews for platform-wide changes, and ensure scalable, reliable, and high-performing services across distributed engineering teams in US, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai hubs.
- Team Leadership and Development: Build and manage a high-performing engineering team, strengthen team health and execution quality, develop team members' technical and leadership capabilities, and foster a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement across geographically distributed locations.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with product managers, designers, and engineering stakeholders to shape platform strategy, align capabilities with customer and business needs, prioritize effectively, and act as a bridge between local Seoul teams and global colleagues to ensure unified execution.
- Code Quality and Technical Excellence: Contribute hands-on to code reviews, technical problem-solving, and critical implementation work where needed, maintaining high standards for engineering quality, reliability, and operational excellence across the payment infrastructure.
- Performance and Reliability Optimization: Use data-driven insights and system monitoring to improve platform performance, reliability, and operational metrics. Lead initiatives for low-latency, high-availability treasury and payment systems serving mission-critical financial operations.
- Strategic Planning and Execution: Own roadmap development for the GTPN platform, make sound decisions with incomplete information in fast-paced environments, prioritize initiatives aligned with business growth, and execute on complex financial infrastructure challenges at global scale.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
JVM Ecosystem and Modern Languages
Strong proficiency with Java or Kotlin, particularly within Spring and Spring Boot frameworks. Deep understanding of JVM internals, garbage collection, memory management, and performance tuning in production systems.
Distributed Systems Architecture
Expertise in designing and operating distributed systems, including microservices architecture, service mesh concepts, API design, database sharding, and eventual consistency patterns. Experience with payment processing workflows and financial transaction handling is valuable.
Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps
Proficiency with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tools for monitoring, logging, and tracing. Understanding of cost optimization in cloud environments.
Data-Driven Development
Ability to leverage metrics, monitoring data, and system insights to make architectural and operational decisions. Familiarity with APM tools, distributed tracing, and performance profiling techniques.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related quantitative/technical field required. This provides foundational knowledge in algorithms, data structures, and computer systems theory essential for platform architecture decisions.
Experience
Team Leadership Experience
Proven track record leading high-performing engineering teams, including hiring, mentoring, and developing team members. Experience managing distributed teams across multiple geographies and time zones preferred.
Software Engineering Expertise
8+ years in modern software engineering environments with deep expertise in system design, architectural patterns, and building scalable distributed systems. Strong background in production-grade infrastructure and platform engineering.
Technical Judgment and Decision-Making
Demonstrated ability to guide teams in building reliable, scalable systems with strong technical judgment. Experience evaluating tradeoffs between velocity, scalability, reliability, and technical debt in complex systems.
Fintech and Regulated Environments
Preferred experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated financial domains. Understanding of compliance requirements, payment processing workflows, and financial infrastructure challenges is highly valued.
High-Availability Systems
Prior experience leading teams responsible for building and maintaining high-availability, low-latency systems with stringent uptime requirements and critical operational constraints.
Skills
Required
Leadership and People Management
Proven ability to recruit, develop, and retain high-performing engineers. Strong coaching skills, conflict resolution capabilities, and experience creating psychological safety and ownership culture within teams.
System Design and Architecture
Expert-level capability in designing large-scale distributed systems, evaluating architectural tradeoffs, and making decisions that balance performance, scalability, reliability, and maintainability across complex platforms.
Strategic Thinking and Execution
Ability to synthesize information from multiple sources, connect dots across functions, develop long-term technical vision, and maintain focus on both big-picture strategy and critical details simultaneously.
Cross-Functional Communication
Excellence in communicating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, articulating tradeoffs, building consensus, and collaborating effectively with product, design, operations, and business teams across distributed locations.
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
Comfort making sound technical and strategic decisions with incomplete information. Ability to move quickly while maintaining quality standards and adapting decisions based on new data in fast-paced fintech environments.
Operational Excellence
Experience establishing and maintaining high standards for code quality, testing, operational procedures, and incident response. Capability to build systems and processes that support reliability and reduce operational toil.
Preferred
Fintech Domain Expertise
Nice to haveDeep understanding of payment systems, treasury operations, foreign exchange, settlement processes, and regulatory requirements in financial services. Knowledge of payment rails, banking infrastructure, and cross-border payments valuable.
Regulated Environment Experience
Nice to havePrior experience in highly regulated industries (financial services, healthcare), understanding compliance frameworks, audit processes, and how to balance innovation with regulatory requirements and risk management.
Open Source Contribution
Nice to haveActive contributions to open-source projects, particularly in infrastructure, payment systems, or distributed systems space. Demonstrates thought leadership and community engagement in software engineering.
Multi-Region and Multi-Tenancy Architecture
Nice to haveExperience designing and operating systems that serve multiple geographic regions, handle multi-tenancy, address data residency requirements, and manage deployment complexity across global infrastructure.
Performance Optimization at Scale
Nice to haveTrack record optimizing large-scale systems for performance and cost, including database query optimization, caching strategies, and infrastructure efficiency improvements in high-traffic environments.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·KRW 140,000 – 200,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Competitive Equity Package
As an Engineering Manager at a well-funded fintech leader, you'll receive meaningful stock options aligned with employee ownership and long-term value creation as Airwallex continues its global expansion.
Professional Development and Learning
Access to engineering conferences, training programs, and budget for continuous skill development. Opportunities to lead technical communities, speak at events, and build thought leadership in fintech and distributed systems.
Global Team and Exposure
Work with talented engineers across US, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai hubs. Exposure to global fintech challenges, diverse engineering practices, and opportunities to build international reputation.
High-Impact Work on Critical Infrastructure
Lead development of core payment infrastructure used by 675,000+ businesses including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok. Your decisions directly impact global commerce and financial operations at scale.
Flexible Work Arrangements
While the Seoul role requires on-site presence five days per week, Airwallex offers flexibility around work arrangements and maintains distributed team structures supporting work-life balance.
Comprehensive Health and Wellness
Competitive health insurance coverage, wellness programs, and support for mental health and wellbeing. Access to fitness benefits and initiatives promoting healthy work environments.
Parental Leave and Family Support
Generous parental leave policies, family-friendly benefits, and support for work-life integration including childcare assistance and flexible scheduling where applicable.
Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
Commitment to building diverse and inclusive teams with employee resource groups, mentorship programs, and clear paths for underrepresented groups in engineering leadership.
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Screening Call
Recruiter or talent acquisition specialist will conduct a 30-minute screening call to understand your background, leadership experience, motivation for the role, and alignment with Airwallex's engineering culture and principles. Expect questions about your management philosophy and experience with distributed teams.
- 02
Technical Leadership Discussion
One-hour conversation with a senior engineering leader at Airwallex focusing on your technical background, system design expertise, and approach to architectural decisions. You'll discuss past projects, technology choices, and how you've navigated complex technical challenges in payment or fintech systems.
- 03
Management and Leadership Interview
45-60 minute interview with a current or recent manager at Airwallex exploring your team leadership experience, hiring philosophy, approach to developing engineers, conflict resolution, and how you foster high-performing cultures. Expect behavioral questions about scaling teams and maintaining quality during rapid growth.
- 04
Cross-Functional Collaboration Assessment
Discussion with product, design, or operations stakeholders focused on your ability to partner cross-functionally, communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences, and balance business needs with engineering excellence. Questions may explore how you've shaped product strategy or navigated competing priorities.
- 05
Fintech and Payments Context Discussion
Conversation exploring your experience in fintech, payments, or regulated environments. Interviewers will assess your domain knowledge, understanding of payment infrastructure, and how you've built reliable systems handling critical financial operations. No prior fintech experience is required, but curiosity and learning agility are valued.
- 06
Cultural Fit and Leadership Principles
Final interview with a senior leader from Airwallex exploring alignment with company operating principles including ownership, speed with judgment, curiosity, and first-principles thinking. Discussion around your working style, decision-making framework, and values alignment with an AI-native, fast-moving fintech organization.
Full posting
Original listing.
About Airwallex
Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.
We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.
How you'll make impact
As an Engineering Manager, you’ll lead the architecture, development, and operation of platform systems that support Airwallex’s global treasury and payment products. You’ll manage and develop a high-performing engineering team, strengthening team health, execution quality, and long-term technical outcomes.
Set technical direction, guide key architectural decisions, and deliver scalable, reliable, and high-performing services.
Partner closely with engineering, product, and cross-functional stakeholders to shape platform strategy, prioritise effectively, and deliver capabilities aligned with customer and business needs.
Contribute to code reviews, technical problem-solving, and critical implementation work where needed, while maintaining high standards for engineering quality, reliability, and operational excellence.
Use data and system insights to improve platform performance, reliability, and team effectiveness.
Set technical direction across a distributed engineering team by leading design reviews for platform-wide changes, collaborating with engineering hubs across the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
You’ll work from our Seoul office five days a week.
What we're looking for
Essentials
Proven experience leading high-performing engineering teams.
Strong software engineering and system architecture background, with 8+ years of experience in modern engineering environments.
Strong technical judgment and experience guiding teams building scalable, reliable systems.
A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
Strong cross-functional collaboration and execution skills.
High ownership, sound prioritisation, and adaptability in fast-paced environments.
A data-driven, customer-aware, and quality-focused approach.
Preferred
Experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated financial domains.
Deep experience with JVM-based ecosystems, including Java or Kotlin with Spring or Spring Boot.
Prior experience leading teams responsible for high-availability, low-latency systems.
You'll thrive here if
You’re comfortable owning the roadmap yourself.
You’re comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.
You’re comfortable acting as a bridge between the local team and our global colleagues, sharing context clearly and helping both sides work effectively as one team.
You say what you mean. You’re direct, but you lead with respect.
You can connect dots across functions and hold the big picture without losing grip on the details.
Learn more about your team
The Global Treasury and Payment Network (GTPN) team sits at the heart of Airwallex’s payment infrastructure. As one of our foundational businesses and a major contributor to our growth, we build and operate the core treasury and payment infrastructure that powers our global financial products. We operate at the intersection of global financial infrastructure and modern product innovation, expanding the reach and capabilities of our treasury and payment network, strengthening reliability and resilience, and building innovative payment products at global scale. We’re a distributed engineering team, with talented engineers across established and emerging hubs around the world. As we continue to expand, you’ll work closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to build and evolve products and platforms that solve complex financial problems and support businesses around the world.
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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