Staff Software Engineer, Issuing Platform

AIRWALLEX (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading fintech company in Singapore is looking for a staff software engineer to design, build, and lead architectural improvements for their transaction processing platform. This role requires 7+ years of experience in backend development, proficiency in Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python, and expertise in distributed systems. Candidates should have a strong ability to mentor other engineers and drive technical excellence without formal management responsibilities. The position offers an opportunity to impact core systems significantly.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong proficiency in backend development using Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python.
• Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate reliable, scalable systems for real-time card transactions.
• Lead the design of distributed, event-driven systems.
• Set a high bar for code quality and testing.

Skills

Backend development

Coding in Java, Kotlin, Go, or Python

Designing distributed systems

Event-driven architectures

Mentorship skills

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

Job description

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 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 powers 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 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:

• 7+ 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.