Engineering Lead, Issuing Platform

Airwallex; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A global financial technology firm located in Singapore is seeking an Engineering Lead for its Issuing Platform. The role involves leading teams responsible for building critical components of transaction processing systems, while ensuring high standards of engineering quality. Qualified candidates should have over 8 years of software engineering experience, including people management, and a strong background in backend development with languages like Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python. Join us to shape the future of financial technology.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• At least 2+ years in a people leadership role managing engineers directly.
• Solid understanding of computer science fundamentals and object-oriented design principles.

Responsibilities

• Manage, coach, and grow a team of engineers.
• Provide technical direction for transaction processing systems.
• Guide the evolution of application and platform infrastructure.

Skills

Java

Kotlin

Go

Python

Backend Development

Event-Driven Architecture

RESTful APIs

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

AWS

Kafka

Splunk

Grafana

Prometheus

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 200,000 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 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 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

The issuing engineering team at Airwallex builds and operates core systems for card issuing, transaction processing, and settlement at global scale. The team owns mission‑critical platforms that underpin Airwallex’s issuing products, with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, and compliance. Key areas of ownership include:

• Cards: Customer‑facing and internal systems for card lifecycle management, controls, and configuration.
• Transactions: A global, high‑throughput transaction processing platform designed for low latency, high availability, and resiliency.
• Settlement: Clearance, settlement, and dispute workflows that ensure financial accuracy and scheme compliance.

What you’ll do

As an Engineering Lead, Issuing Platform, you will lead one or more teams responsible for building and operating critical components of the issuing platform. This role combines people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership.

You will have direct reports and are accountable for team health, execution, and long‑term technical quality. While you remain technically credible and hands‑on at an architectural level, your primary focus is enabling teams to do their best work rather than being the primary individual contributor.

This role is based in Singapore.

Responsibilities:

People leadership and team development

• Manage, coach, and grow a team of engineers through regular feedback, performance management, and career development.
• Build a strong engineering culture focused on ownership, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Support hiring and onboarding to scale the team sustainably.

Technical leadership and delivery

• Provide technical direction and architectural guidance for high‑impact transaction processing systems.
• Partner with senior engineers and staff engineers to design scalable, resilient solutions.
• Ensure high standards for system design, code quality, testing, and operational excellence.

Platform and infrastructure ownership

• Guide the evolution of application and platform infrastructure to reduce operational overhead and improve developer productivity.
• Drive improvements across reliability, observability, security, and cost efficiency.

Strategic collaboration

• Work closely with product, operations, and other engineering leaders to align execution with business priorities.
• Evaluate new technologies and patterns, and make pragmatic decisions that balance innovation with stability.

Who you are

We are looking for senior engineers with deep technical expertise and a strong track record of impact as a tech lead.

Minimum qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 2+ years in a people leadership role managing engineers directly.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong background in modern backend development using languages such as Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python.
• Proven experience designing and delivering large‑scale, distributed, production systems.
• Solid understanding of computer science fundamentals and object‑oriented design principles.
• Hands‑on experience with event‑driven and streaming architectures, for example Kafka.
• Experience designing and operating RESTful APIs at scale.
• Cloud experience with GCP (preferred) or AWS, including containerized workloads using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with observability and operational tooling such as Splunk, Grafana, and Prometheus.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and lead the execution of technical and delivery strategy.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated financial domains.
• Deep experience with JVM‑based ecosystems, including Java or Kotlin with Spring or Spring Boot.
• Prior experience leading teams responsible for high‑availability, low‑latency systems.

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. Please apply only through 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.