Engineering Director, Payments Platform

Airwallex; Greater London; On-site; GBP 155,000 - 237,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking an Engineering Director for the Payments Platform to lead and shape critical components across global markets. The role combines people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership, with bases in Singapore, the United Kingdom, or San Francisco.

You will guide architecture, scaling, and delivery for high‑volume payment systems while fostering a culture of ownership and excellence.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in leadership.
• Experience managing Engineering Managers or Leads, building and scaling teams.
• Strong product thinking and ability to partner with Product Management to define roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the Payments Platform vision: end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform across global markets.
• Lead and grow a world-class engineering organization: manage, coach, and develop engineering managers and senior talent.
• Drive technical architecture and platform excellence: provide direction for high-volume, mission-critical systems with reliability and security.
• Deliver with speed and operational rigor: set OKRs, manage execution across initiatives, balance short-term delivery with long-term health.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to align technology with business outcomes: partner with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional leaders.

Skills

People management

Engineering leadership

Product thinking

System design

High-growth environment

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, Rippling, 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.

About the Team

Payments Platform at Airwallex is where global payment complexity is turned into infrastructure that helps businesses accept and move money more simply.

We build the platform behind how payments are accepted and processed across markets, helping businesses embed payments into their workflows, improve conversion, and operate with less friction. The work supports a core growth lever for Airwallex: payment experiences that are reliable, scalable, and easy to use.

What makes this team distinct is the challenge at the heart of it: balancing performance, reliability, local complexity, and commercial outcomes in the same system. Small improvements can materially affect customer experience and conversion, while failures are immediately visible.

You’ll do well here if you enjoy product infrastructure with clear business impact. This team suits engineers who are thoughtful, pragmatic, and motivated by making complex problems feel simple to customers.

If you want to build the platform that makes payments work seamlessly for businesses around the world, this is the team at the center of that mission.

What you’ll do

As an Engineering Director, you will the teams that are responsible for building and operating critical components of the Payments Platform. This role combines people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership.

This role can be based in Singapore, United Kingdom and San Francisco, United States.

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute the Payments Platform vision: Own the end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform — covering payment processing, routing, settlement, reconciliation, and partner integrations — ensuring it scales reliably across global markets.
• Lead and grow a world‑class engineering organization: Manage, coach, and develop Engineering Managers and senior technical talent across multiple squads, building a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement while driving sustainable hiring and team growth.
• Drive technical architecture and platform excellence: Provide architectural direction for high-volume, mission‑critical payment systems, setting high standards for reliability, observability, security, scalability, and developer productivity across the platform.
• Deliver with speed and operational rigor: Set clear OKRs, manage execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, and hold teams accountable for high-quality outcomes — balancing short‑term delivery with long‑term platform investments and operational health.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally to align technology with business outcomes: Partner closely with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional engineering leaders to ensure platform capabilities directly support Airwallex's growth, customer experience, and regulatory requirements.

Who you are

We are looking for engineering leaders with deep technical expertise and a strong track record of impact.

Minimum qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience in people management, including managing Engineering Managers or Engineering Leads, with a track record of building and scaling high‑performing teams.
• Strong product thinking and the ability to partner closely with Product Management to define roadmaps, prioritize delivery, and drive business outcomes.
• Deep technical fluency in software architecture and system design, with experience guiding architectural decisions for large‑scale, complex distributed systems.
• Proven ability to operate in fast‑paced, high‑growth environments where incremental improvement, ownership, and speed of execution are valued.
• Experience in fintech, financial services, payments, or a similarly regulated industry where correctness and data integrity are critical.

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.