Staff Backend Engineer, AI

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 150,000 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 1,800 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$6.2 billion and backed by world-leading investors including Visa, Airtree, Blackbird, Sequoia, DST Global, Greenoaks, Salesforce Ventures, Lone Pine, and Square Peg, 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.

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

This team is building production AI that eliminates financial busywork for startups globally. We're delivering intelligent automation across payments, payroll, bookkeeping, and tax—freeing founders to focus on building their companies instead of managing finances.

We leverage cutting-edge AI tooling across the spectrum: from prompt engineering and in-context learning to fine-tuned models and agentic systems, choosing the right approach for each problem. We work backward from real founder pain points, own customer outcomes, and ship fast.

The team is small, elite, and builder-focused, led by operators with a track record of shipping AI products at scale. You'll solve hard technical problems with real autonomy and direct customer impact.

About the Role

Set the technical direction and lead architecture for our intelligent finance platform. You’ll shape scalable services, resilient APIs, and durable data models in Python on GCP, enabling fast iteration with enterprise-grade reliability and security.

What You’ll Do

• Lead architecture of distributed systems on GCP for high-volume, high-sensitivity data.

• Define and build Python APIs and services that power AI applications and frontends.

• Own data modeling and schemas for long-term growth and flexibility.

• Create foundations that let teams move quickly while maintaining reliability and security.

• Partner with AI engineers and mentor engineers across teams.

What You Need to Have

• 8+ years backend experience with Python at scale.

• Deep knowledge of SQL/NoSQL and distributed systems, event-driven architectures, or microservices.

• Familiarity with GCP services (Pub/Sub, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, BigQuery, KMS, etc.).

• Strong grasp of security and compliance best practices.

• Proven ability to set technical direction, drive complex projects, and uplevel teams.

• Passion for building the backend that powers intelligent products.

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.

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. If you are approached by someone claiming to represent Airwallex, please verify with our team.