Director, Ai‐Powered Merchant & Payments Engineering

Zip Co; Sydney; On-site; AUD 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days paid leave annually

16 weeks parental leave

Wellbeing allowance

Dental/health benefits

Volunteer days

Job summary

Zip Co is seeking a Director of Engineering for the Merchant & Payments domain in Sydney. You will lead the technology strategy, align with product and architecture, and drive scalable, secure platforms used by millions of customers and merchants.

You will oversee onboarding, orchestration, trust, settlement and merchant enablement, champion AI-enabled improvements, and build high-performing teams with a culture of accountability and excellence.

Qualifications

• Extensive leadership experience building and scaling engineering organisations within fintech, payments, digital commerce or marketplace businesses.
• Deep expertise across modern payments architecture, including payment orchestration, tokenisation, acquiring, fraud, trust, clearing and settlement.
• Experience defining technology strategy that balances long term platform evolution with commercial outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the engineering strategy for Zip's Merchant & Payments domain, aligning technology investment with our long term business strategy.
• Lead the evolution of our merchant and payments platforms across onboarding, orchestration, trust, settlement and merchant enablement.
• Partner closely with Product, Design and Architecture leaders to deliver seamless merchant experiences from acquisition through to ongoing growth.
• Shape the future of AI enabled and Agentic Commerce by identifying opportunities to apply emerging technologies to customer and merchant experiences.
• Build, mentor and inspire high performing engineering leaders, creating a culture of innovation, accountability and engineering excellence.
• Drive modern engineering practices, sustainable delivery models and operational excellence across multiple engineering teams.
• Provide technical leadership across cloud native platforms and distributed systems while balancing innovation with resilience, security and reliability.
• Influence executive stakeholders and external partners to help shape the future of payments and digital commerce.
• Champion continuous improvement through experimentation, learning and technology innovation.

Skills

Leadership

Fintech payments

Cloud native

AI integration

Kubernetes

Enterprise scale

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Distributed systems

Job description

Write your story with a career at Zip

Join Zip's Technology function, responsible for building and maintaining seamless, secure and sustainable platforms that enable customers to shop with confidence and merchant partners to grow their brands.

As Director, Engineering for our Merchant & Payments domain, you will lead the technology strategy that powers how merchants discover, integrate, accept payments and grow with Zip. Working alongside Product, Design and Architecture leaders, you'll shape the next generation of intelligent commerce experiences by combining modern payment infrastructure, scalable platform engineering and AI.

This is a rare opportunity to influence the future of commerce while leading high performing engineering teams delivering platforms that are trusted by millions of customers and merchants.

What you’ll own

• Define and execute the engineering strategy for Zip's Merchant & Payments domain, aligning technology investment with our long term business strategy.
• Lead the evolution of our merchant and payments platforms across onboarding, orchestration, trust, settlement and merchant enablement.
• Partner closely with Product, Design and Architecture leaders to deliver seamless merchant experiences from acquisition through to ongoing growth.
• Shape the future of AI enabled and Agentic Commerce by identifying opportunities to apply emerging technologies to customer and merchant experiences.
• Build, mentor and inspire high performing engineering leaders, creating a culture of innovation, accountability and engineering excellence.
• Drive modern engineering practices, sustainable delivery models and operational excellence across multiple engineering teams.
• Provide technical leadership across cloud native platforms and distributed systems while balancing innovation with resilience, security and reliability.
• Influence executive stakeholders and external partners to help shape the future of payments and digital commerce.
• Champion continuous improvement through experimentation, learning and technology innovation.

What You’ll Bring To The Team

• Extensive leadership experience building and scaling engineering organisations within fintech, payments, digital commerce or marketplace businesses.
• Deep expertise across modern payments architecture, including payment orchestration, tokenisation, acquiring, fraud, trust, clearing and settlement.
• Experience defining technology strategy that balances long term platform evolution with commercial outcomes.
• Strong knowledge of cloud native architectures and distributed systems, with experience guiding engineering organisations at enterprise scale.
• Experience applying AI to improve customer experiences, merchant capabilities or engineering productivity.
• Demonstrated success leading Engineering Managers and senior technology leaders while building inclusive, high performing cultures.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to influence executive stakeholders across Technology, Product and the broader business.
• Experience working with modern engineering technologies such as AWS, Kubernetes and microservices architectures.
• A passion for innovation, continuous improvement and building engineering teams that thrive through change.
• An mindset that embraces AI and new tools to adapt, learn and grow.
• An aptitude for identifying and managing risks. Whether you are a People Manager or an Individual Contributor, we are all leaders at Zip, therefore effective risk management is important to how we run our business and part of all our roles.
• Our values in your DNA: Customer First, Own It, Stronger Together and Change the Game

What You’ll Get In Return

As we write this next exciting chapter in our story, we will continue to move at pace and embrace change. For you, this might mean opportunities to learn new skills with hands‑on experience, broader responsibilities, or the buzz of seeing your work impact customers faster.

Zip is a place where you’ll get out exactly what you put in. When you join the team, we'll do our best to make sure you can be yourself and surround yourself with smart, friendly colleagues and leaders who have your back, so that you can make the big things happen.

Zipsters tell us these are just some of the best things about working here. You’ll also receive:

• 25 days paid leave annually, including birthday leave and quarterly wellbeing days
• 16 weeks paid parental leave for primary carers, and 4 weeks for supporting carers
• Family support policies including miscarriage bereavement leave and domestic violence leave
• Mental health and wellness initiatives, including $299 annual wellbeing allowance, free access for you and family members to our EAP service Sonder, discounted private health insurance, and great rates on fitness sessions through ClassPass
• 2 days paid volunteering leave per year
• Access to the Flare Benefits Hub and Novated Leasing for savings across lifestyle, essentials and wellbeing
• Fee‑free Zip products, and discounts with Zip merchant partners
• Team social events, epic offices, free breakfast daily, and weekly free lunches

Be a part of a team that reflects the diversity of our customers

We pride ourselves on being a workplace that provides equal opportunities to people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, veteran status, and everything else that makes you unique.

Equally, we’re committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are accessible and inclusive. Please let us know If there are any adjustments that need to be made to ensure you have a fair and equitable experience.

And finally…get to know us

Zip Co Limited (ASX: ZIP) is a digital financial services company, offering innovative, people‑centred products that bring customers and merchants together.

Operating in two core markets - Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and the US, Zip offers point‑of‑sale credit and digital payment services, connecting millions of customers with its global network of tens of thousands of merchants.

We’re proud to be a values‑led business and our values - Customer First, Own it, Stronger Together and Change the Game - guide us in everything we do.