Engineering Director

About the role

The Engineering team at Airwallex is a diverse group of innovators, builders, and problem solvers, driven by a mission to empower businesses to operate anywhere, anytime. We thrive in a collaborative and fast-paced environment, where we're constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the financial technology space.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Expenses sub-domain (product / family of products), owning the vision, delivery, and roadmap in close collaboration with the local product teams.
• Work alongside other Engineering Managers to evolve the technical architecture across the entire Spend domain, contributing to engineering leadership decisions that mature the technical platform for the future, particularly in areas of data engineering, AI, and analytics.
• Scale the US engineering team and whilst providing technical mentorship as new squads are established.
• Drive operational excellence across your domain by setting challenging OKRs, optimizing delivery processes, and ensuring high-quality results across multiple concurrent projects.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Design, Commercial, and other US Engineering Leads to align technical execution with business strategy and help build Airwallex's US site culture and employer brand.
• Own the talent acquisition strategy for your domain, working closely with Talent Acquisition to source, attract, and retain top engineering talent in the San Francisco market.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles (Engineering Manager, Director, or equivalent).
• 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in fintech, financial services, payments, or a similarly regulated industry where correctness and data integrity are critical.
• Familiarity with AI/ML-driven product development or experience evolving technical platforms to incorporate data engineering, analytics, or agentic automation capabilities.
• Comfort operating across global time zones and collaborating with distributed engineering teams in multiple regions.
• Entrepreneurial mindset with a bias toward action and continuous improvement, and curiosity to learn quickly, adapt fast, and grow through stretch opportunities.