Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.
We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.
Hiring Location: London (Hybrid Mode)
Total Compensation: 140,000 to 200,000 GBP
How you'll make impactThe Founders’ Lab turns ambitious, ambiguous ideas into financial products that can be tested with real users. You’ll combine software engineering and product judgement to move from executive vision to working software quickly, with ownership across the full product lifecycle.
Partner directly with the CEO and global leadership to turn strategic visions and disruptive AI capabilities into functional, market-ready financial software in weeks, not quarters.
Shape product direction by synthesising business requirements, regulatory realities, user needs and emerging technology. You won’t just build to a specification — you’ll help define what to build and why.
Run rapid proofs of concept, deploy products to live users, test market fit and balance fast iteration with sound technical foundations.
Deliver end-to-end solutions across the stack, from backend architecture and API design through to frontend polish, putting useful products in the hands of global users.
Build clean, maintainable software from ambiguous executive direction, with complete end-to-end ownership across both product and engineering.
You'll work from our London office three days a week.
What we're looking forEssentials6+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong foundation in backend architecture and the ability to work confidently across the full stack when needed.
A track record of personally shipping products from scratch in a high-growth startup, corporate innovation lab or greenfield environment.
Strong product and commercial judgement, with the ability to challenge assumptions and evaluate technical decisions through the lens of user experience and business impact.
A pragmatic, resourceful approach to problem-solving, with a track record of finding creative paths around institutional and technical roadblocks.
Comfort working with high ambiguity and translating high-level strategic or executive direction into clean, maintainable software.
Experience building software that uses generative AI, large language models or intelligent workflow automation.
Experience in fintech, payments, compliance or money-movement infrastructure.
Experience as a startup founder, founding engineer or technical lead of a rapid-prototyping team.
You own the outcome and you don't wait for permission to fix what's broken.
You're comfortable with ambiguity. Give you a problem, not a prescription, and you'll run with it.
You default to action. You'd rather course-correct in motion than wait for perfect clarity.
You're not precious about your ideas. You push hard for what you believe in, but you pivot fast when the data says otherwise.
You value in-person collaboration and are happy being in the office three days a week.
The Founders’ Lab is Airwallex’s elite internal innovation hub. Operating like an agile startup backed by our global network, we partner directly with our CEO and Co-Founder to architect, build, and ship next-generation Fintech AI Innovations and 0-to-1 product lines.
We don't build in isolation, nor do we over-engineer for theoretical problems. Our mandate is high-velocity validation: we take raw, ambitious, and ambiguous concepts from the executive suite, build the MVP, and deploy it onto our global financial infrastructure to test with real users.
We look for High-Agency Builders. There are no layers of middle management or rigid ticketing queues here. You will hold complete end-to-end technical and product ownership—wearing the hat of a Product Manager to define the what and the why, and acting as a lead engineer to build the how.
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.
