Staff Software Engineer, Cards

About the Role

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Cards team at Airwallex, you will lead the architecture and development of complex backend systems that support our card products. You will drive cross-team technical initiatives, mentor engineers, and shape the long-term engineering strategy to ensure scalability, security, and reliability at a global scale.

Responsibilities

• Drive the architecture, design, and evolution of complex backend systems that support the Cards product.
• Lead cross-functional technical initiatives and ensure alignment with long-term engineering goals.
• Own the full lifecycle of backend services,from idea to design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
• Guide teams in making scalable, secure, and high-performing system design decisions.
• Establish engineering best practices around observability, testing, and API design.
• Mentor and support the growth of engineers across the team.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, and infrastructure teams to deliver reliable and impactful solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience in technical leadership roles.
• Proven experience architecting and scaling backend systems and APIs in production.
• Strong computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.
• Expertise in at least one backend language (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Go, Python).
• Deep understanding of REST API design and modern backend frameworks (e.g., Spring Boot).
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, GCP) and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes.
• Strong commitment to code quality, reliability, and performance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing technical direction at a system-wide level.
• Proficiency in observability and monitoring tools (e.g., Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk).
• Familiarity with security and compliance considerations in the financial services domain.
• A passion for mentoring and helping others grow.