# Senior Software Engineer, Growth
**Company:** [Airwallex](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/airwallex)
Senior Backend Engineer role at Airwallex, a fintech leader building an AI-native financial operating system. You'll design and operate scalable backend services powering growth automation, customer acquisition, and intelligent decision-making across a platform serving 675,000+ businesses. Requires 5+ years building production backend systems with strong distributed systems expertise, Python/Java proficiency, and proven ability to deliver complex solutions end-to-end in fast-paced environments.
**Role:** Backend Engineer
**Seniority:** Senior
**Locations:** US - Seattle
**Salary:** 158000–225000 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/airwallex/bb4b0d82-a68f-4949-9357-dc79a3636ab9)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/airwallex/senior-software-engineer-growth-bb4b0d82
---
## Responsibilities

- Design and build scalable backend systems: Architect and develop high-performance APIs, distributed microservices, event-driven architectures, and real-time data processing capabilities that power growth automation infrastructure and enable intelligent decision-making systems serving hundreds of thousands of concurrent users.
- Develop AI-native platform capabilities: Build backend systems that integrate large language models, agentic workflows, and machine learning models to transform customer signals, product telemetry, lifecycle events, and behavioral data into personalized experiences and automated customer journeys with measurable business outcomes.
- Own end-to-end technical delivery: Take full ownership of complex backend services and platform components from initial design and implementation through production deployment, monitoring, and operational support, demonstrating autonomy and accountability in delivering quality solutions.
- Design for reliability, security, and scale: Engineer highly available, secure, and observable services that handle massive transaction volumes in regulated fintech environments, continuously optimizing performance, implementing comprehensive monitoring, and maintaining operational excellence standards.
- Solve ambiguous business problems: Partner cross-functionally with Product Management, Data Science, Marketing, Sales, and peer engineering teams to translate complex growth business requirements into pragmatic, scalable technical solutions that balance engineering rigor with speed of execution.
- Elevate engineering quality and mentorship: Contribute to technical excellence through thoughtful system design, comprehensive code reviews, knowledge sharing sessions, architectural documentation, and mentoring junior engineers to build stronger engineering capabilities across the growth platform team.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Bachelor's degree","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical field; equivalent professional experience and demonstrated expertise may be considered."}

### technical

- {"name":"5+ years professional backend engineering experience","description":"Demonstrated track record building, deploying, and operating production-grade backend systems at scale, with deep responsibility for system reliability, performance, and architectural decisions in complex distributed environments."}
- {"name":"Backend language proficiency","description":"Strong command of Python, Java, Kotlin, or comparable backend languages with solid computer science fundamentals and production experience with frameworks such as FastAPI, Spring Boot, or equivalent modern backend frameworks."}
- {"name":"Distributed systems and backend architecture expertise","description":"Deep understanding of microservices architecture, API design patterns, data modeling strategies, event-driven systems, asynchronous processing, horizontal scalability, fault tolerance, and reliability engineering principles."}
- {"name":"Complex solution design and delivery","description":"Proven ability to independently architect and implement complex backend solutions, make sound technical tradeoffs, navigate competing priorities, and take ownership of services through their full lifecycle from conception to production operations."}
- {"name":"Strong ownership and collaboration","description":"Demonstrated high agency, problem-solving capability, and ability to work effectively across functions with minimal oversight, navigating ambiguity and delivering high-quality solutions that require cross-team coordination and technical leadership."}

### experience

- {"name":"Growth platform development","description":"Experience architecting experimentation frameworks, A/B testing platforms, customer segmentation engines, marketing automation systems, or data-intensive applications that drive business growth metrics and user engagement."}
- {"name":"AI and ML systems integration","description":"Hands-on experience building AI-powered production applications, integrating large language models, implementing agentic workflows, orchestrating tool chains, managing model inference at scale, and designing observability for AI systems."}
- {"name":"Real-time data infrastructure","description":"Experience designing and implementing real-time data pipelines, streaming technologies (Kafka, Flink, etc.), event sourcing patterns, or large-scale event processing systems handling millions of events per second."}
- {"name":"Cloud infrastructure and DevOps","description":"Proficiency with AWS, GCP, or Azure cloud platforms; hands-on experience with containerization (Docker), orchestration systems (Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, and modern cloud-native architecture patterns."}
- {"name":"Observability and reliability engineering","description":"Experience implementing comprehensive monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing using tools like Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, DataDog, or equivalent; expertise in designing for observability, SLOs, and incident response."}
- {"name":"Enterprise system integrations","description":"Track record designing and implementing robust integrations across product analytics, CRM platforms, marketing automation systems, data warehouses, and other enterprise software systems in complex operating environments."}
- {"name":"Fintech or regulated environment experience","description":"Background in high-growth fintech companies, regulated payments infrastructure, cross-border transactions, or compliance-heavy environments where security, data integrity, and regulatory adherence are critical to system design."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Python","description":"Production-grade Python development with modern async frameworks (FastAPI, asyncio) and deep understanding of Python ecosystem for backend systems and data processing."}
- {"name":"Java","description":"Enterprise Java development experience with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, or equivalent frameworks for building microservices, handling concurrent request processing, and managing complex application lifecycle."}
- {"name":"System design and architecture","description":"Ability to design scalable, reliable, and maintainable backend architectures considering trade-offs between consistency, availability, partition tolerance, performance, and operational complexity."}
- {"name":"API design","description":"RESTful API design expertise including HTTP semantics, status codes, pagination, rate limiting, versioning strategies, and designing APIs that balance client needs with backend constraints."}
- {"name":"Database design and optimization","description":"Proficiency in data modeling, query optimization, index strategies, and selecting appropriate database technologies (SQL and NoSQL) for different use cases and scale requirements."}
- {"name":"Asynchronous systems","description":"Deep expertise in asynchronous programming patterns, message queues, event-driven architectures, and handling eventual consistency in distributed systems."}
- {"name":"Code quality and testing","description":"Commitment to writing testable, maintainable code with comprehensive unit, integration, and end-to-end test coverage; experience with TDD and production debugging techniques."}
- {"name":"Production troubleshooting","description":"Skilled at diagnosing and resolving production issues using logs, metrics, traces, and debugging tools; experience implementing proper error handling, circuit breakers, and retry logic."}

### preferred

- {"name":"Kotlin","description":"Experience with Kotlin for JVM development, leveraging language features for safer, more concise backend code in systems requiring high reliability and maintainability."}
- {"name":"Apache Kafka","description":"Hands-on experience designing and operating Kafka infrastructure for high-throughput event streaming, implementing producer/consumer patterns, and managing stream processing topologies at scale."}
- {"name":"PostgreSQL and Redis","description":"Deep operational experience with PostgreSQL for complex relational data, Redis for caching and real-time data structures, including performance tuning and reliability patterns."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Experience deploying, scaling, and managing applications on Kubernetes, including service discovery, load balancing, persistent storage, and troubleshooting container orchestration issues."}
- {"name":"LLM integration and agentic systems","description":"Experience integrating large language models into production systems, implementing function calling workflows, orchestrating multi-step agent reasoning, and designing evaluation frameworks for AI systems."}
- {"name":"GraphQL","description":"Experience designing and implementing GraphQL APIs for flexible data querying, handling N+1 query problems, implementing subscriptions, and optimizing resolver performance."}
- {"name":"gRPC and Protocol Buffers","description":"Experience building high-performance service-to-service communication using gRPC and Protocol Buffers for internal APIs, especially in latency-sensitive environments."}
- {"name":"Cloud platforms","description":"Proficiency with AWS services (EC2, RDS, SQS, Lambda, DynamoDB) or GCP services (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, BigQuery) for building cloud-native applications."}
- {"name":"Monitoring and observability","description":"Experience implementing comprehensive observability using Datadog, New Relic, or similar platforms; designing metrics, alerts, and dashboards for production systems."}
- {"name":"dbt and data transformation","description":"Experience with dbt or similar data transformation tools for building reliable data pipelines, data modeling, and enabling analytics in modern data stacks."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Apache Kafka","description":"Distributed event streaming platform for building real-time data pipelines and enabling event-driven architectures across growth systems."}
- {"name":"Docker","description":"Container technology for packaging, deploying, and ensuring consistency across development, testing, and production environments."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform for managing containerized services at scale, enabling auto-scaling, rolling updates, and high availability."}
- {"name":"AWS","description":"Cloud platform providing compute, storage, databases, and managed services for building scalable growth infrastructure."}
- {"name":"GCP","description":"Google Cloud Platform offering alternative cloud infrastructure with BigQuery for analytics and Pub/Sub for event streaming."}
- {"name":"Grafana","description":"Metrics visualization and alerting platform for implementing comprehensive observability and monitoring of production systems."}
- {"name":"Prometheus","description":"Time-series metrics collection and storage system for monitoring application and infrastructure health metrics."}
- {"name":"Datadog","description":"Observability platform providing unified monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing for complex distributed systems."}
- {"name":"Git and GitHub","description":"Version control and collaboration platform for managing codebase, code reviews, and CI/CD integration."}

### others

- {"name":"Microservices architecture","description":"Designing, building, and operating independent services that communicate via APIs and events, enabling scalability and independent deployment."}
- {"name":"Event-driven architecture","description":"Building systems where services communicate through events rather than direct calls, enabling loose coupling and real-time data propagation."}
- {"name":"Machine learning integration","description":"Integrating ML models and LLMs into backend systems, managing inference, feature serving, and model orchestration at scale."}
- {"name":"API gateway patterns","description":"Implementing request routing, authentication, rate limiting, and protocol translation at API gateway layer for microservices."}
- {"name":"Distributed tracing","description":"Implementing end-to-end request tracking across microservices using tools like Jaeger or Datadog for debugging complex distributed systems."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure as Code","description":"Using tools like Terraform to manage cloud infrastructure, enabling reproducible, versionable infrastructure deployments."}
- {"name":"CI/CD pipelines","description":"Automating code testing, building, and deployment processes to enable rapid, reliable iteration and maintaining system stability."}
- {"name":"gRPC","description":"High-performance RPC framework for service-to-service communication, particularly valuable for latency-sensitive fintech systems."}

### databases

- {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Primary relational database for complex data modeling, ACID transactions, and supporting growth analytics and customer data in fintech contexts."}
- {"name":"Redis","description":"In-memory data store for caching, real-time feature flags, session management, and implementing fast decision-making in growth systems."}
- {"name":"DynamoDB","description":"Serverless NoSQL database on AWS for high-scale, low-latency data access patterns in customer data and event storage."}
- {"name":"Snowflake","description":"Cloud data warehouse for analytics, real-time data processing, and enabling data science teams to build growth models and customer segmentation."}

### languages

- {"name":"Python","description":"Primary backend language for building APIs and growth platform services, particularly for async applications and data processing pipelines."}
- {"name":"Java","description":"Enterprise-grade backend language for building microservices, distributed systems, and high-throughput payment processing infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Kotlin","description":"Modern JVM language used for backend services development, offering improved safety and conciseness compared to Java."}
- {"name":"SQL","description":"Required for database design, complex queries, and data analysis in relational database systems."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"FastAPI","description":"High-performance Python web framework for building modern async APIs with automatic documentation and built-in validation."}
- {"name":"Spring Boot","description":"Enterprise Java framework for building microservices, handling dependency injection, and providing comprehensive ecosystem for distributed systems."}
- {"name":"Spring Cloud","description":"Spring Boot extensions for cloud-native development including service discovery, configuration management, and distributed tracing."}

## Benefits

### benefits

## Compensation

- **max:** 0
- **min:** 0
- **currency:** 
- **stockOptions:** false

## Interview process

### steps

## Full description
## **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](https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles) to see it in full.

## **How you'll make impact**

Growth Engineering at Airwallex is building an AI-native platform that powers customer acquisition, activation, conversion, retention, and expansion. We're developing scalable infrastructure, intelligent decision systems, and automation capabilities that connect product, sales, and marketing to drive measurable business outcomes.

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you'll design, build, and own the backend services and platform capabilities that power Growth at scale. You'll work on technically challenging problems at the intersection of distributed systems, AI, and data infrastructure, with direct visibility into business impact.

* **Build scalable backend systems**, including high-performance APIs, distributed services, event-driven architectures, and real-time data processing capabilities that power growth automation and intelligent decision-making.
* **Develop AI-native capabilities** that transform customer signals, product usage, lifecycle events, and business context into personalized experiences, next-best actions, and automated workflows.
* **Own end-to-end technical delivery**, independently designing, implementing, deploying, and operating complex backend services and platform components.
* **Design for reliability and scale**, building secure, observable, highly available services while continuously improving system performance and operational excellence.
* **Solve ambiguous business problems**, partnering with Product, Data Science, Marketing, Sales, and other engineering teams to translate requirements into pragmatic technical solutions.
* **Elevate engineering quality** through thoughtful system design, code reviews, knowledge sharing, and mentoring other engineers.

US: You'll work from our San Francisco office three days a week.

## **What we're looking for**

### **Essentials**

* **5+ years of professional software engineering experience**, with substantial experience building and operating production backend systems, and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
* **Strong proficiency in Python, Java, Kotlin, or a comparable backend language**, with solid computer science fundamentals and experience with frameworks such as FastAPI or Spring Boot.
* **Strong understanding of distributed systems and backend architecture**, including API design, data modeling, event-driven architectures, asynchronous processing, scalability, and reliability.
* **Proven ability to independently design and deliver complex backend solutions**, making sound technical tradeoffs and owning services from implementation through production operations.
* **Strong ownership, problem-solving, and collaboration skills**, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, work effectively across functions, and deliver high-quality solutions with minimal oversight.

### **Preferred**

* Experience building growth platforms, experimentation systems, customer segmentation engines, marketing automation, or data-intensive applications.
* Experience building AI-powered applications or agentic workflows, including LLM integration, tool orchestration, evaluation, and production observability.
* Experience with real-time data pipelines, streaming technologies, or large-scale event processing.
* Familiarity with cloud infrastructure such as AWS or GCP, containerization, and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
* Experience with production observability and reliability tooling such as Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, or equivalent.
* Experience designing integrations across product, analytics, CRM, marketing, or other enterprise systems.
* Experience in high-growth technology companies, fintech, payments, or regulated environments.

## **You'll thrive here if**

* **You have high agency.** You proactively identify opportunities for improvement and take ownership of delivering solutions.
* **You're a strong builder.** You enjoy turning ideas into production systems and take pride in shipping reliable, maintainable software.
* **You're pragmatic and outcome-oriented.** You balance engineering quality with speed of execution and focus on delivering measurable impact.
* **You're comfortable with ambiguity.** You break down complex problems, make thoughtful decisions with incomplete information, and adapt quickly.
* **You take end-to-end ownership.** You care about how your systems perform in production, not just whether the code ships.
* **You communicate proactively.** You surface risks early, collaborate effectively, and bring solutions rather than just problems.
* **You thrive in a global environment.** You're comfortable working with distributed teams across APAC, EMEA, and the US.

## **Learn more about your team**

Growth at Airwallex is building a unified, AI-native growth system across product, sales, and marketing. Rather than applying AI to isolated tasks, we use customer context, machine learning, automation, and continuous learning to transform how Airwallex acquires, activates, converts, retains, and expands customers.

You’ll build high-traffic platforms, experimentation frameworks, and intelligent decision systems that turn signals—such as company profile, product usage, lifecycle stage, behavior, and intent—into personalized journeys, next-best actions, and measurable incremental value.

The work spans both human + AI and autonomous operating models: AI-native tools that increase the leverage of growth teams, alongside agentic workflows that can research opportunities, launch and optimize campaigns, orchestrate customer journeys, and measure outcomes within clear strategies and guardrails.

The challenge is to combine consumer-technology speed with the precision, trust, and regulatory complexity of global B2B finance. If you enjoy owning ambiguous problems end to end, prototyping quickly, measuring real business impact, and using every outcome to improve the next decision, you’ll help define how an AI-native global financial platform grows.

## **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.