Engineering Lead, Onboarding

AIRWALLEX (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking an Engineering Lead for Onboarding in Singapore to own both technical direction and people leadership for the team. You will guide frontend and backend engineers, drive architecture for scalable KYC and onboarding infrastructure, and collaborate with Product, Risk, and Compliance to deliver secure, compliant solutions that enable global growth.

You will set technical direction, establish performance standards, and promote observability, security, and automation to reduce

Qualifications

• 7+ years in backend/distributed systems engineering with 2+ years of management.
• Experience building scalable microservices and onboarding systems.
• Domain familiarity with fintech, onboarding, KYC, or compliance is a plus.
• Customer-centric approach balancing security and user experience.
• Data-driven mindset with ability to leverage metrics to improve systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead & mentor a team of frontend and backend engineers; foster high performance.
• Drive architecture and design for scalable KYC and onboarding systems.
• Build and own onboarding microservices in Java/Kotlin for global identity verification.
• Collaborate with Product, Risk, and Compliance to align solutions with regulations and user needs.
• Define SLOs, improve observability, monitoring and incident response.
• Champion secure coding, robust auth, and proactive vulnerability management.
• Explore automation and AI-driven improvements to scale onboarding and fraud detection.

Skills

Engineering Leader

Distributed systems

Frontend/backend leadership

KYC onboarding knowledge

Security & compliance mindset

Mentor & bar raiser

Clear communication

Ownership & accountability

Job description

Engineering Lead, Onboarding

Hiring Location: Singapore

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 150,000 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 1,700 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$6.2 billion and backed by world-leading investors including Visa, Airtree, Blackbird, Sequoia, DST Global, Greenoaks, Salesforce Ventures, Lone Pine, and Square Peg, 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.

About the Team

The Onboarding team is at the core of Airwallex’s mission. We play a pivotal role in enabling Airwallex’s global growth. We build KYC and verification systems. Our goal is reduce barriers to entry, enhance compliance and security, and enable global expansion for our customers.

As Engineering Lead, you will own both the technical direction and the people leadership of the Onboarding team. You’ll be collaborating across Product, Risk, Data, and Design to ensure we deliver customer-first solutions that unlock growth worldwide. You will set technical direction, and guide a team of engineers to deliver scalable, secure onboarding infrastructure that empowers businesses worldwide.

What You’ll Do

• Lead & Mentor: Manage, coach, and grow a team of frontend and backend engineers. Foster a collaborative, inclusive, high-performing environment.
• Hands-On Leadership: Drive architecture and technical design for scalable KYC and onboarding systems. Provide technical guidance and elevate engineering standards.
• Build Scalable Onboarding Systems: Lead development of microservices in Java/Kotlin, supporting global identity verification, liveness checks, and risk-based operations.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner with Product, Risk, and Compliance teams to align technical solutions with regulatory requirements and customer experience.
• Promote Operational Excellence: Define and measure SLOs for reliability and performance. Improve observability, monitoring, and incident response.
• Ensure Security & Compliance: Champion secure coding practices, robust authentication/authorization, and proactive vulnerability management.
• Innovate & Improve: Explore automation and AI-driven solutions to scale onboarding and enhance fraud detection.

Who You Are

• Engineering Leader: 7+ years in backend/distributed systems engineering, with 2+ years of management experience.
• Systems Thinker: Strong expertise in building scalable, fault-tolerant microservices.
• Domain Familiarity: Experience in fintech, onboarding, KYC, or compliance systems is a plus.
• Customer-Centric: Empathetic toward customer onboarding pain points; balance security and UX.
• Data-Driven: Strong analytical mindset, leveraging data to improve systems and outcomes.
• Mentor & Bar Raiser: Committed to growing engineers and raising engineering quality.
• Clear Communicator: Able to translate technical concepts for stakeholders at all levels.
• Ownership-Driven: Proactive, accountable, and able to drive projects to success end-to-end.

Why Join Us

• Impact: Shape Airwallex’s onboarding engine — the foundation of global business growth.
• Growth: Build your leadership career in a fast-paced, innovative fintech.
• Collaboration: Work with world-class engineers, product leaders, and compliance experts.
• Innovation: Drive adoption of AI, data, and automation in onboarding.

At Airwallex, you can make an impact in a rapidly growing, global fintech. We want you to share in our success, which is why you’ll be offered a competitive salary plus valuable equity within Airwallex. We also like to ensure we create the best environment for our people by providing collaborative open office space with a fully stocked kitchen. We organise regular team-building events and we give our people the freedom to be creative.

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. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

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 concerning the 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.