Staff Backend Engineer, Issuing Platform

Airwallex; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex in Singapore is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to design and build reliable, scalable systems for card transactions. The role requires 8+ years of software engineering experience, proficiency in backend languages like Java or Kotlin, and deep experience with event-driven architectures. Candidates should have strong knowledge of distributed systems and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field. The position also entails mentoring other engineers and guiding technical direction across teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Deep experience designing and delivering large-scale, distributed systems.
• Strong proficiency in backend development.

Responsibilities

• Design and build highly reliable, scalable systems for card transactions.
• Lead design of distributed, event-driven systems.
• Set high standards for code quality and operational readiness.

Skills

Backend development (Java, Kotlin, Go, Python)

Event-driven and streaming architectures

Designing RESTful APIs

Cloud experience (GCP or AWS)

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

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.

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.

• 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 a staff software engineer, you are a senior individual contributor responsible for designing, building, and evolving the most technically complex parts of the issuing platform. While you do not have direct reports, your impact comes from deep technical ownership, architectural leadership, and raising the engineering bar across teams through design, mentorship, and example. This role is based in Singapore.

Responsibilities

Technical ownership and execution

• Design, build, and operate highly reliable, scalable systems that power real‑time card transactions.
• Take end‑to‑end ownership of complex problem spaces, from system design through production rollout and long‑term evolution.

Architecture and system design

• Lead the design of distributed, event‑driven systems with strong guarantees around correctness, performance, and resiliency.
• Drive architectural improvements that reduce complexity, improve operability, and enable future product growth.

Engineering excellence

• Set a high bar for code quality, testing, observability, and operational readiness.
• Identify and remove technical bottlenecks that slow down teams or introduce systemic risk.

Cross‑team technical leadership

• Influence technical direction across multiple teams through design reviews, RFCs, and hands‑on collaboration.
• Mentor senior engineers and help shape engineering best practices without formal people management responsibilities.

Platform and infrastructure evolution

• Contribute to the evolution of core infrastructure and shared platform capabilities to improve developer productivity and system reliability.
• Evaluate new technologies pragmatically and guide their adoption where they deliver clear value.

Who you are

We are looking for senior engineers with deep technical expertise and a strong track record of impact as an individual contributor.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with sustained impact as a senior or staff‑level individual contributor.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong proficiency in backend development using languages such as Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python.
• Deep experience designing and delivering large‑scale, distributed systems in production.
• Strong computer science fundamentals and solid understanding of object‑oriented design.
• Hands‑on experience with event‑driven and streaming architectures, for example Kafka.
• Proven experience designing and operating RESTful APIs at scale.
• Experience with domain‑driven design and event‑driven architectures.
• Cloud experience with GCP (preferred) or AWS, including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with observability tooling such as Splunk, Grafana, and Prometheus.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and influence technical direction through design and execution rather than authority.

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.

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.