Principal Engineer

Network For Electronic Transfers (S); Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore) Pte Ltd. seeks a Principal Engineer to lead the UPOS & DA application portfolio, defining target architecture and modernization roadmaps for mission-critical payment platforms.

The role guides a technical team, ensuring secure, high-performance delivery aligned with cybersecurity standards and payment-scheme mandates. The successful candidate will translate complex business needs into actionable technical strategies, collaborate across Product

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related technology discipline.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive technology experience, including leadership roles.
• Proven experience leading large-scale software development and transformation programmes.
• Deep expertise in enterprise application and integration architecture, including Java/Spring Boot, APIs, databases, and cloud platforms.
• Strong knowledge of payment and cybersecurity requirements, PCI-DSS and secure software engineering.

Responsibilities

• Define target application architecture, engineering roadmap, standards, and modernization strategy.
• Act as design authority for complex payment initiatives including authorization, processing, switching, and gateway services.
• Provide oversight across multiple tracks to deliver secure, scalable, and resilient payment solutions.
• Lead architecture decisions across Java/Spring Boot, REST APIs, databases, containers, cloud services, and payment integrations.
• Drive multi-year transformation plans for modernization, API enablement, observability, and operational resilience.

Skills

Leadership

Executive communication

Technical governance

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Java

Spring Boot

PostgreSQL

MySQL

AWS

Azure

Job description

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Company: Network For Electronic Transfers (S)

The NETS Group is a leading payments services group, enabling digital payments for merchants, consumers and banks across the entire payments value chain.

The Group operates Singapore’s national debit scheme enabling customers of DBS Bank/POSB, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB to make payments using their ATM cards or mobile devices at more than 130,000 acceptance points in the country as well as online payments.

Position Summary

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to serve as the application development and delivery lead, as well as the senior technical authority, for the UPOS & DA application portfolio. The role is responsible for defining the target architecture, engineering strategy, technology standards, modernization roadmap, and major solution decisions for mission-critical digital payment platforms and Java-based backend applications.

The successful candidate will guide a dynamic technical team in designing and delivering secure, scalable, high-performance, and highly available payment solutions. The role is accountable for driving the speed, quality, reliability, and operational resilience of application delivery while ensuring that solutions align with business objectives, cybersecurity standards, payment regulations, and industry best practices.

As an effective communicator, the candidate must be able to translate complex business requirements into clear technical strategies and solution architectures, communicate design decisions effectively to engineering teams and senior stakeholders, and provide direction across multiple concurrent development tracks. The role will collaborate closely with Product Development, Business Development, Technology, Architecture, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, QA, DevOps, Operations, Finance, vendors, banks, and payment schemes to ensure successful delivery from concept through production.

The ideal candidate will possess deep application engineering and payment-domain expertise, strong executive-level communication and influencing skills, and substantial hands-on software development experience. The candidate must be able to establish engineering guardrails, manage technical risks, guide complex transformation programmes, mentor senior engineers, and remain hands-on when resolving high-impact architectural, delivery, and production challenges.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and govern the target application architecture, engineering roadmap, technology standards, and modernization strategy for the UPOS & DA application portfolio.
• Act as the technical design authority for complex and high-risk initiatives involving payment authorization, transaction processing, switching, settlement, reconciliation, onboarding, API integration, and payment gateway services.
• Provide application development and infrastructure oversight across multiple implementation tracks, ensuring the delivery of secure, scalable, low-latency, highly available, and resilient payment solutions.
• Lead architecture and engineering decisions across Java and Spring Boot applications, RESTful APIs, Solace JMS, databases, Linux or RHEL platforms, container technologies, cloud services, and payment-system integrations.
• Shape and drive multi-year transformation plans covering legacy application modernization, Java and Spring Boot framework modernization, API enablement, cloud adoption, observability, automation, and operational resilience.
• Review and approve major solution designs, integration patterns, data models, non-functional requirements, capacity plans, security controls, source code, and implementation approaches.
• Oversee the assigned portfolio of projects and change requests, ensuring effective prioritization, resource planning, technical governance, risk management, and delivery across multiple concurrent development tracks.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards through architecture reviews, design reviews, code reviews, technical forums, and delivery assurance processes.
• Provide technical leadership across Product Development, Business Development, Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, QA, DevOps, Operations, Finance, vendors, banks, and payment schemes.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to design and implement innovative payment services that align with business objectives, enterprise architecture, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships across the Technology division to ensure seamless service transition from development to production and adherence to established development, testing, release, and operational processes.
• Ensure application architecture and engineering delivery comply with PCI-DSS, secure development standards, technology risk controls, data protection obligations, internal policies, and applicable payment scheme mandates.
• Identify systemic risks, application vulnerabilities, architectural constraints, and technical debt, and prioritise remediation to improve security, performance, availability, recoverability, maintainability, and cost efficiency.
• Lead the resolution of critical production issues and major incidents, validate root causes, and ensure sustainable corrective and preventive actions are implemented across the application portfolio.
• Maintain open communication with internal and external stakeholders to identify opportunities for process optimisation, security enhancement, development efficiency, and improved service implementation methodologies.
• Represent UPOS & DA in senior management and governance forums, clearly communicating technical options, risks, dependencies, delivery status, and investment recommendations to executive stakeholders.
• Develop senior engineering capability through mentoring, coaching, design forums, technical communities, knowledge sharing, succession planning, and consistent engineering governance.
• Provide regular coaching and performance feedback through one-to-one discussions, team meetings, development planning, and structured performance reviews.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related technology discipline.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive technology experience, including substantial experience as a Principal Engineer, Solution Architect, Engineering Lead, Engineering Manager, or technical authority in a medium to large organization.
• Proven experience leading large-scale software development, application modernization, migration, or transformation programmes across multiple teams, vendors, and concurrent delivery tracks.
• Deep expertise in enterprise application and integration architecture, including Java and Spring Boot, RESTful APIs, distributed systems, Solace JMS, databases, Linux or RHEL platforms, containers, cloud technologies, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Proven track record in designing, delivering, and modernising secure, low-latency, high-throughput, highly available, and business-critical transaction processing systems.
• Strong knowledge of digital-payment ecosystems, including transaction switching, retail POS, e-commerce, QR payments, credit and debit cards, payment authorization, clearing and settlement, digital banking platforms, and international card scheme integration.
• Experience with mobile applications and SDK development will be advantageous where relevant to the application portfolio.
• Strong integration architecture experience across AWS, Azure, or GCP, API management platforms, middleware, enterprise systems, infrastructure, databases, and external service providers.
• Deep understanding of payment and cybersecurity requirements, including PCI-DSS, secure software engineering, data encryption, tokenisation, access control, technology risk, audit controls, disaster recovery, operational resilience, and risk-mitigation strategies.
• Hands-on experience with modern software engineering and delivery practices, including DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, infrastructure automation, application observability, vulnerability management, and secure deployment processes.
• Experience with Java and Spring Boot frameworks, Solace JMS, PostgreSQL or MySQL, RHEL, containers, and AWS or another major cloud platform is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to establish architecture principles, engineering standards, technical guardrails, and governance practices across multiple development teams.
• Proven ability to manage competing priorities, technical dependencies, delivery risks, and multiple concurrent development tracks in a regulated and business-critical environment.
• Strong systems thinking, technical judgment, analytical ability, problem-solving skills, and capacity to balance strategic direction with hands-on technical leadership and accountable delivery.
• Ability to foster and maintain collaborative working relationships with business stakeholders, cross-functional technology teams, senior management, vendors, banks, and payment schemes.
• Excellent written, verbal presentation, influencing, and executive communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts, options, risks, and recommendations to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, mentor, coach, and develop senior engineers and technical leads while maintaining a high degree of professionalism across all organisational levels.

Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore) Pte Ltd.