Staff Software Engineer, Backend - Scale

re-zoo-me; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 264,000 - 331,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex, founded in Melbourne, is building the next generation of embedded financial platforms and multi-tenant infrastructure used by global customers. We seek a seasoned software engineer to contribute across cross-functional teams, focusing on Java/Spring Boot, scalable architecture, and production excellence.

You will design for scale, mentor peers, and collaborate with product, design, compliance, and sales to deliver enterprise-grade solutions that meet ambitious performance goals and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in Java/Spring Boot (8+ for Staff).
• Excellent abstraction skills balancing flexibility and simplicity.
• Strong written and verbal communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven ability to make pragmatic trade-offs between performance and velocity.

Responsibilities

• Develop and innovate to impact global businesses.
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and designers to ship Embedded Finance features.
• Understand customer needs and translate them into scalable technical solutions.
• Lead multi-team initiatives with measurable technical or business impact (Staff).

Skills

Java/Spring Boot

Abstraction & design

Cross-functional collaboration

Performance optimization

Communication

Tools

PostgreSQL

Redis

Kafka

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Job 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, 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. 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.

What The Scale Team Does

• Embedded Finance Platform: Build and maintain the multi-tenant infrastructure powering companies like Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, and SHEIN. You'll architect systems that aggregate requests from all platform customers, meeting enterprise-grade SLAs for availability, latency, and throughput while handling cross-data-center scenarios.
• Cross-Domain Product Features: Own features that require synthesizing knowledge across business, regulatory, and technical domains - areas where no single existing team has full coverage, like tax systems, compliance-driven flows, or monetization tools.
• Solutions Architecture: Design integrations for enterprise prospects by translating their business requirements into technical solutions. Your architectural decisions directly influence deal outcomes - from enabling multi-million dollar contracts to differentiating in competitive sales.

Who You'll Do

• Develop and Innovate: Your work will directly impact the growth and success of businesses worldwide.
• Collaborate and Create: Work alongside a team of talented engineers, product managers, and designers to bring our Embedded Finance products from concept to launch. Your input will be crucial in shaping the future of finance.
• Understand and Empathize: Dive deep into the needs and challenges of our customers. Your good product sense will enable you to design and implement solutions that truly resonate with our users.

  Who You Are

  • Have 5+ years of software engineering experience (8+ for Staff) in Java/Spring Boot
  • Excel at making the right level of abstraction - balancing flexibility and simplicity in system/component design
  • Demonstrate clean communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders
  • Make pragmatic decisions on when to optimize for performance vs. velocity based on business impact
  • Thrive in cross-functional environments spanning Product, Design, Compliance, and Sales
  • Design for scale, maintainability, and production excellence
  • (Staff) Have led multi-team initiatives with measurable technical or business impact

  Bonus if you have

  • Fintech, payments, or regulated industry experience
  • High-scale performance tuning (100k+ QPS, large user bases, strict latency SLAs)
  • Multi-tenant SaaS or platform architecture background
  • Proficiency with PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, or cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)
  • Experience with OAuth2.0, API design, or developer documentation
  • Cross-region deployment or data residency compliance experience
  • Solutions engineering or customer-facing technical experience

  Why Join Us

  • Be Part of Something Big: Join a team that's redefining the future of finance. Your work will have a direct impact on our mission to revolutionize financial services.
  • Grow With Us: At Airwallex, we're committed to your professional development. You'll have opportunities to learn, grow, and shape your career path in a fast-paced, innovative environment.
  • Collaborate With the Best: Work with a team of talented and passionate individuals who are driven by the desire to create something extraordinary.

  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.

  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.

  Compensation Range: SGD 240K - SGD 300K