Staff Software Engineer, Payments — Lead Scalable Backend

Airwallex; City of Amsterdam (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the architecture of our Payments platform, building high‑volume backend services and REST APIs within a microservices ecosystem.

You will partner with product and infrastructure teams to translate merchant needs into scalable solutions, mentor engineers, and improve reliability, testing, and observability across distributed systems.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with backend systems.
• Experience designing high-volume distributed systems, preferably in payments/fintech.
• Hands-on experience with Java or Kotlin and Spring Boot.
• Experience building REST APIs, microservices, Kafka streams, and distributed data stores.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with observability tools (New Relic, Datadog, Prometheus).
• Proven ability to lead projects from concept to production with a focus on quality and maintainability.
• Excellent communication skills across engineering, product, and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and evolution of next-generation Payment Acceptance infrastructure.
• Design and build scalable backend services, REST APIs, event-driven systems, and integration components within a microservices architecture.
• Drive complex initiatives across payment gateways, acquiring, issuing, card networks, and local payment methods.
• Partner with product, business, infrastructure, and external engineering teams to translate merchant needs into technical solutions.
• Conduct architectural reviews, address technical debt, and improve system reliability and scalability.
• Raise the engineering bar through strong design practices, testing, observability, and mentorship.

Skills

Java/Kotlin

Spring

REST APIs

Distributed systems

Kafka

Cassandra

Hazelcast

Oracle Coherence

AWS/GCP

Docker

Kubernetes

Observability tooling

New Relic

Datadog

Prometheus

Leadership

Job description

Airwallex is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the architecture of our Payments platform, building high‑volume backend services and REST APIs within a microservices ecosystem.

You will partner with product and infrastructure teams to translate merchant needs into scalable solutions, mentor engineers, and improve reliability, testing, and observability across distributed systems.