Staff Software Engineer, AI Tooling

Airwallex Pty Ltd.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex Pty Ltd. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to enhance our internal AI tooling. You'll lead projects that ensure the security of substantial payments for businesses worldwide, mentor junior engineers, and partner with diverse teams to identify impactful automation opportunities.

Ideal candidates will have 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with strong skills in cloud infrastructure, scripting, and AI. Join us in transforming the future of global payments.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience as a Software Engineer.
• Experience with production code bases.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of AI tools and applications.
• Support incident response by building tools for threat hunting.
• Build and maintain Kubernetes clusters and serverless workloads.

Skills

Software Engineering

AI Tool Development

Cloud Infrastructure

Scripting

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related field

Tools

Python

Golang

C/C++

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.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,200 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world‑leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, 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.

Attributes We Value

We hire successful builders with founder‑like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role‑related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You’re humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.

About the team

Airwallex’s Information Security team partners closely with engineering, IT, and other stakeholders to protect our systems, data, and employees while enabling the business to move quickly. The team helps build and maintain strong security practices across the company—from secure product and infrastructure design to risk reduction, incident response, audits, and compliance—so security is built into how we operate, not treated as a blocker.

What you’ll do

As a Staff Software Engineer working on internal AI tooling, you will be responsible for helping keep $200b+ in payments, 300,000 companies, and our thousands of employees safe.

You’ll have the opportunity to partner with internal teams to help identify projects that can drive impact – like building internal automation tooling, owning our terabyte‑scale log pipelines, and using AI to streamline how our team operates.

We’re not tied to specific projects, languages, and technology – we rely on smart people diving deep to find the best solutions to hard problems. You’ll also be mentoring junior team members and continuing to grow our world‑class engineering team.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of AI tools and applications, from inception to implementation.
• Support incident response efforts by building ad‑hoc tools for threat hunting, remediation and scanners.
• Build, monitor, and maintain underlying infrastructure, including Kubernetes clusters, serverless workloads, and ETL pipelines.
• Sit with engineers to identify opportunities for automation and tooling development.
• Partner with product engineering teams to drive security outcomes – such as automation for patching, and development of gateways and other services to decrease risk.
• Mentor and help grow other Software Engineers in the team.

Who you are

• You have a passion for solving the complex challenges within a high‑growth start‑up.
• You are self‑motivated, a self starter, and able to learn new skills and dive deeper into existing skills.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience as a Software Engineer.
• Experience with production code bases.
• Experience with at least one scripting language (e.g. Python) and one systems programming language (e.g. Golang, C/C++).
• Experience with modern cloud infrastructure, including data pipelines, serverless workloads, and Kubernetes.
• Proven experience working autonomously on projects – delivering them to a high quality and on time.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Ability to dive deep to find the best solution to a problem.
• Obsessive curiosity and a willingness to ask questions, gather context, and learn.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience working in a high‑growth tech company.
• Hands on experience with AI – specifically leveraging AI to build applications.
• Experience maintaining Linux operating systems.

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. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

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.