Staff Software Architect, Payments Platform

Airwallex; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to define the technical direction of our Payments platform in Amsterdam. You will lead complex architecture decisions, build high-volume distributed systems, and mentor engineers across teams to deliver reliable merchant-focused solutions.

You will work with Java/Kotlin, Spring, and microservices, collaborating with product and business teams to translate merchant needs into robust technical outcomes.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering with senior/Staff leadership.
• Experience designing/high-volume distributed systems, preferably fintech.
• Hands-on with Java or Kotlin and Spring Boot.
• Expertise building REST APIs, microservices, Kafka streams, and distributed stores.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as GCP or AWS, plus Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong familiarity with observability/operational tooling (New Relic, Datadog, Prometheus, ELK).
• Proven ability to lead projects from concept to production with focus on quality and reliability.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to influence across stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and evolution of next-generation Payment Acceptance infrastructure.
• Design and build scalable backend services, REST APIs, event-driven systems, in a microservices setup.
• Drive initiatives across gateways, acquiring, issuing, card networks, and local methods.
• Partner with product, business, infra, and external teams to translate merchant needs into technical solutions.
• Conduct architectural reviews, address technical debt, and improve reliability, scalability, and operations.
• Raise the engineering bar through strong design practices, testing, observability, and mentorship.

Skills

Staff-level leadership

Distributed systems

Java/Kotlin

REST APIs

Cloud platforms

Observability

Project leadership

Communication

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

New Relic

Datadog

Prometheus

ELK

Kafka

Cassandra

Hazelcast

Oracle Coherence

Job description

Airwallex is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to define the technical direction of our Payments platform in Amsterdam. You will lead complex architecture decisions, build high-volume distributed systems, and mentor engineers across teams to deliver reliable merchant-focused solutions.

You will work with Java/Kotlin, Spring, and microservices, collaborating with product and business teams to translate merchant needs into robust technical outcomes.