Engineering Director, Payments Platform (San Francisco)

About AirwallexAirwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 250,000 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 2,300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 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 ValueWe 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 TeamPayments Platform at Airwallex is where global payment complexity is turned into infrastructure that helps businesses accept and move money more simply.We build the platform behind how payments are accepted and processed across markets, helping businesses embed payments into their workflows, improve conversion, and operate with less friction. The work supports a core growth lever for Airwallex: payment experiences that are reliable, scalable, and easy to use.What makes this team distinct is the challenge at the heart of it: balancing performance, reliability, local complexity, and commercial outcomes in the same system. Small improvements can materially affect customer experience and conversion, while failures are immediately visible.You'll do well here if you enjoy product infrastructure with clear business impact. This team suits engineers who are thoughtful, pragmatic, and motivated by making complex problems feel simple to customers.If you want to build the platform that makes payments work seamlessly for businesses around the world, this is the team at the center of that mission.What you’ll doAs an Engineering Director, you will the teams that are responsible for building and operating critical components of the Payments Platform. This role combines people leadership, technical direction, and delivery ownership.This role can be based in Singapore, United Kingdom and San Francisco, United States. Responsibilities:Define and execute the Payments Platform vision: Own the end-to-end strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Airwallex's Payments Platform — covering payment processing, routing, settlement, reconciliation, and partner integrations — ensuring it scales reliably across global markets.Lead and grow a world-class engineering organization: Manage, coach, and develop Engineering Managers and senior technical talent across multiple squads, building a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement while driving sustainable hiring and team growth.Drive technical architecture and platform excellence: Provide architectural direction for high-volume, mission-critical payment systems, setting high standards for reliability, observability, security, scalability, and developer productivity across the platform.Deliver with speed and operational rigor: Set clear OKRs, manage execution across multiple concurrent initiatives, and hold teams accountable for high-quality outcomes — balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform investments and operational health.Collaborate cross-functionally to align technology with business outcomes: Partner closely with Product, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and regional engineering leaders to ensure platform capabilities directly support Airwallex's growth, customer experience, and regulatory requirements.Who you areWe are looking for engineering leaders with deep technical expertise and a strong track record of impact.Minimum qualifications: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, prioritize 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.Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party RecruitersTo 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 opportunityAirwallex 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.Compensation Range: $237K - $407KLocationUS - San FranciscoEmployment TypeFull timeLocation TypeHybridDepartmentEngineeringPayments PlatformCompensation$237K – $407K • Offers Equity • Offers BonusAirwallex promotes fair compensation practices in accordance with applicable national, federal, state, and local law.These expected base pay ranges are based on information at the time this post was generated and represent the company’s good faith minimum and maximum ranges for this role at the time of posting.The actual compensation offered to a candidate will be dependent upon multiple factors, including but not limited to relevant experience, skills and other qualifications, geographic location as noted, internal equity, and other external market factors.Certain roles may be eligible for other compensation including, but not limited to, annual bonuses, commissions, RSUs, or other forms of compensation in addition to the established salary range.Benefits vary by country and employment type in accordance with local statutory requirements. All employees receive at least the statutory minimum for paid annual leave and public holidays, with many of our locations offering additional company-provided vacation days.For example, for US-based employees, they are eligible to participate in medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan, short-term and long-term disability, basic life insurance, and well-being benefits. US-based employees also receive 20 paid days of vacation and 12 paid days of company holidays in a calendar year.Further details about our compensation and benefits package are available upon request by contacting our Talent Acquisition team.