Head of Engineering, Payments Platform

Airwallex; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex, co-headquartered in San Francisco, seeks an Engineering Director to own strategy and architecture for the Payments Platform across global markets. You will lead multiple squads, shape the roadmap, and drive high-impact delivery while ensuring reliability and regulatory alignment.

You will partner with Product, Risk, Compliance, and regional leaders to scale engineering excellence in a fintech environment and foster ownership and speed across a global team.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience
• 5+ years in engineering leadership roles
• Experience managing Engineering Managers or Engineering Leads
• Strong product thinking and ability to partner with Product Management
• Deep fluency in software architecture and system design
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems
• Experience in fintech, payments, or regulated industries

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform across global markets.
• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering organization by managing Engineering Managers and senior technical talent.
• Provide architectural direction for high-volume, mission-critical payment systems with reliability, observability, security, and scalability.
• Drive execution across multiple initiatives, balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform investments.
• Partner with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional engineering leaders to align capabilities with growth and regulatory requirements.

Skills

Software engineering

Engineering leadership

People management

Product thinking

Software architecture

Distributed systems

Fintech experience

Agility

Roadmap ownership

Job description

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

How you'll make impact

Payments Platform turns global payment complexity into infrastructure that helps businesses accept and process money more simply. As Engineering Director, you'll combine people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership to build and operate critical components of the platform.

• Own the end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform, covering payment processing, routing, settlement, reconciliation, and partner integrations across global markets.

• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering organisation by managing and developing Engineering Managers and senior technical talent across multiple squads, while building a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.

• Provide architectural direction for high-volume, mission-critical payment systems, setting high standards for reliability, observability, security, scalability, and developer productivity.

• Drive execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform investments and operational health.

• Partner with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional engineering leaders to ensure platform capabilities support Airwallex's growth, customer experience, and regulatory requirements.

What we're looking for

Essentials

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.

• Demonstrated experience in people management, including managing Engineering Managers or Engineering Leads, with a track record of building and scaling high-performing teams.

• Strong product thinking and the ability to partner closely with Product Management to define roadmaps, prioritise delivery, and drive business outcomes.

• Deep technical fluency in software architecture and system design, with experience guiding architectural decisions for large-scale, complex distributed systems.

• Proven ability to operate in fast-paced, high-growth environments where incremental improvement, ownership, and speed of execution are valued.

• Experience in fintech, financial services, payments, or a similarly regulated industry where correctness and data integrity are critical.

You'll thrive here if

• You're comfortable owning the roadmap yourself.

• You own the outcome and you don't wait for permission to fix what's broken.

• You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.

• You enjoy working closely with people across multiple countries and time zones as part of one connected, global team, including flexing your hours occasionally to make that connection work.

• You have experience at a fintech, payments company, or other highly regulated business.

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.

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.