Senior Backend Engineer, Financial Markets

Airwallex2 months ago

Location

AU - Melbourne

Type

Full Time

Level

Senior

Role

Backend Engineer

Posted

Dec 23, 2025

Full TimeSenior

The role

Summary

Airwallex is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join their Financial Markets team in Melbourne, focusing on building core FX and liquidity technology systems. The role involves designing high-performance backend services for FX pricing, execution, and risk management using JVM technologies, microservices architecture, and event-driven systems. This position requires 5+ years of backend development experience and expertise in distributed systems, with opportunities to work on cutting-edge fintech infrastructure supporting over 200,000 global businesses.

What you'll do

Backend Service Development: Design, build and own backend services for FX pricing, execution and risk management, focusing on performance, correctness and reliability

Platform Architecture Evolution: Contribute to the evolution of FX platform architecture including microservices, event-driven workflows, Kafka, gRPC, and SQL/NoSQL datastores

Risk Controls Implementation: Implement and maintain robust controls for pricing, limits, risk, reconciliation and monitoring to ensure system predictability under stress

End-to-End Feature Development: Work end-to-end on features from requirements and solution design to implementation, automated testing, deployment and operational runbooks

Cross-Team Collaboration: Collaborate with Product, Treasury, Risk, Data and engineering teams to design APIs and data contracts that are easy to use and backward compatible

System Instrumentation: Instrument services with metrics, logs and tracing, using data to drive capacity planning, performance optimization and incident resolution

Code Review and Mentoring: Participate in code reviews, technical design discussions and knowledge-sharing sessions while mentoring less-experienced engineers

On-Call Support: Take part in on-call rotation to ensure the FX platform remains reliable and highly available with strong observability and runbooks

What we look for

Technical

Backend Systems Experience5+ years of experience building and operating backend systems in production environments

JVM ProgrammingStrong programming experience in Kotlin, Java or comparable backend stack with willingness to work in JVM ecosystem

Distributed SystemsSolid understanding of concurrency, data consistency, idempotency, retries, backoff, and failure modes in networked services

API DesignExperience designing and working with REST and/or gRPC APIs and persistence layers using relational databases and key-value stores

Event-Driven ArchitectureProficiency with event-driven architectures and message brokers/streams like Kafka or similar technologies

Testing and QualityStrong focus on testing including unit, integration and contract tests with familiarity in CI/CD pipelines

ObservabilityGood grasp of metrics, logging, tracing and alerting, and ability to use them for debugging production issues

Education

Computer Science DegreeBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field preferred

Experience

Financial SystemsExperience working in complex domains like financial markets, payments or high-integrity distributed systems preferred

Production OperationsHands-on experience with production system operations, monitoring, and incident response

Cross-Functional CollaborationClear written and verbal communication skills with experience working with cross-functional partners in fast-paced environments

Skills

Required skills

JVM LanguagesProficiency in Kotlin, Java or similar backend languages

Distributed SystemsUnderstanding of concurrency, consistency, and failure handling

Database SystemsExperience with PostgreSQL, NoSQL, and key-value stores

API DevelopmentREST and gRPC API design and implementation

Event StreamingKafka or similar message broker experience

Testing FrameworksUnit, integration, and contract testing methodologies

ObservabilityMetrics, logging, tracing, and alerting systems

CI/CDContinuous integration and deployment pipelines

Nice to have

Financial MarketsExperience in fintech, payments, or financial services domain

Microservices ArchitectureLarge-scale distributed system design patterns

Performance OptimizationLow-latency, high-throughput system optimization

Risk ManagementFinancial risk controls and compliance systems

Container TechnologiesDocker, Kubernetes, and cloud-native technologies

MentoringExperience leading and mentoring junior engineers

Compensation & benefits

Benefits

Competitive Salaries

Market-competitive compensation packages

Comprehensive Health Benefits

Full health insurance coverage and medical benefits

Flexible Work Environment

Work arrangements that respect work-life balance

Professional Development

Growth opportunities to lead projects and advance career in fintech environment

Innovation Culture

Work with latest technologies in a culture that challenges the status quo

Inclusive Team Culture

Team that values transparency, inclusivity, and collaboration

Global Impact

Contribute to platform transforming fintech landscape supporting thousands of businesses worldwide

Interview process

1
Initial Screening — Phone or video call with recruiter to discuss background and role fit
2
Technical Phone Screen — Technical discussion with engineering team member covering system design and coding concepts
3
Technical Assessment — Coding challenge or take-home assignment focusing on backend development and problem-solving
4
System Design Interview — Whiteboard or virtual session designing distributed systems relevant to financial markets
5
Cultural Fit Interview — Behavioral interview with team members and stakeholders to assess collaboration and communication
6
Final Round — Meet with senior engineering leadership and discuss technical vision and team contribution