At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the strategy and delivery of fraud management products to protect global customers.
- Company: Join Airwallex, a pioneering fintech company valued at US$8 billion.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, diverse teams, and opportunities for career growth.
- Other info: Collaborative culture focused on innovation and operational excellence.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in global finance while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: 8+ years in back-end engineering and 2+ years in management required.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
About Airwallex
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 200,000 businesses worldwide 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 2,200 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future.
Attributes We Value
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.
About the team
The Risk Platform team at Airwallex is responsible for managing the risk for all the products at Airwallex. The risk landscape is constantly changing, and fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated. We are at the forefront of innovation in risk management. Our mission is to keep Airwallex's products and services safe and secure, and make Airwallex a trusted partner for businesses around the world. We use cutting-edge technologies to implement and improve our strategy. We collaborate with other teams and our customers globally to ensure a holistic approach for risk management.
What you’ll do
- As an Engineering Manager, you will own the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of real-time detection systems and client-facing fraud management products that protect customers and revenue at global scale.
- This is a hands-on leadership role: you will shape architecture and execution while developing managers and senior engineers to do the best work of their careers.
- Provide strategic leadership for a mission-critical fraud and risk platform, aligning technical direction and capacity planning with business goals and regulatory requirements.
- Work with PM, Design, Ops, Commercial and Strategy teams to shape the future of our fraud management products.
- Build and scale a high-performing engineering organization: set goals, establish career paths, run performance and compensation processes, and cultivate a culture of ownership, inclusion, and excellence.
- Partner closely with PM to define the roadmap, prioritize a measurable backlog, and deliver outcomes that improve detection rates, reduce false positives, and minimize chargebacks.
- Serve as the accountable owner for architecture and system quality across services, ensuring reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency for real-time decisioning under high load.
- Remain hands-on where it matters: guide designs, review critical code and APIs, and de-risk complex initiatives with pragmatic technical deep dives.
- Drive design and code quality: institute standards, reviews, and automated checks that raise the bar without slowing teams down.
- Ensure cross-team collaboration with platform, data, SRE, security, and global engineering teams; remove blockers and foster clear interfaces, SLAs, and ownership.
- Own operational excellence: on-call readiness, incident response, postmortems, observability, capacity planning, and continuous reliability improvements.
- Lead talent strategy: recruit, onboard, and develop engineers and managers; build diverse teams and succession plans for sustained velocity.
Who you are
We're looking for people who meet the minimum qualifications for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.
Minimum qualifications:
- 8+ years in back-end engineering with 2+ years in engineering management, including ownership of complex, distributed systems in production.
- Risk management or Fintech product engineering experience.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field.
- Proficiency in Java, including multi-threading, high-concurrency patterns, I/O/NIO, and network programming.
- Deep experience with distributed systems and high-availability, high-throughput architectures.
- Proficiency with Spring / Spring Boot, HTTP, TCP/IP, REST, and build tools such as Gradle / Maven.
- Practical experience with Docker and Kubernetes for containerization and orchestration.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Leadership across multiple disciplines with managers-of-managers scope for Director-level candidates.
- Working knowledge of machine learning in production and strong data analysis skills to interpret model and rule performance.
- Fluency in English for effective collaboration across global teams and stakeholders.
- Familiarity with modern data and storage technologies.
- Polyglot engineering with one or more of Kotlin, Scala, Python, Golang.
- Cloud experience with Alibaba Cloud, AWS, or GCP; strong grasp of cloud networking, security, and cost management.
- Background with risk-specific components.
- Awareness of regulatory and security standards relevant to payments.
What Will Set You Apart
- You think in systems: data, models, rules, services, and people—optimizing the whole, not just parts.
- You operate with clarity and urgency, turning ambiguity into decisive roadmaps and measurable results.
- You coach and multiply leaders, not just output; you attract and retain top talent.
- You balance pragmatism and rigor, delivering incrementally while paying down risk and tech debt deliberately.
Applicant Safety Policy: To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers, 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.
Equal opportunity
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.
Engineering Manager, Risk in London employer: Airwallex
Airwallex is an exceptional employer that fosters a dynamic and inclusive work culture, empowering its employees to take ownership of their projects while driving innovation in the fintech space. With a commitment to professional growth, team collaboration, and cutting-edge technology, employees are encouraged to tackle complex challenges and develop their skills in a supportive environment. Located in Melbourne, Airwallex offers unique opportunities to work alongside some of the brightest minds in tech, making it an ideal place for those seeking meaningful and rewarding careers.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Engineering Manager, Risk in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to people in your industry, especially those at Airwallex. A friendly chat can open doors and give you insights that a job description just can't.
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for the interview by diving deep into Airwallex's products and services. Show us you understand our mission and how your skills can help tackle the challenges we face in risk management.
✨Tip Number 3
Practice your problem-solving skills! We love candidates who can think on their feet. Be ready to discuss how you've tackled complex issues in the past, especially in engineering or risk management.
✨Tip Number 4
Don't forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you're serious about joining our team.
We think you need these skills to ace Engineering Manager, Risk in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your Application:Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter for the Engineering Manager role. Highlight your experience in risk management and back-end engineering, and show us how your skills align with our mission at Airwallex.
Showcase Your Leadership Skills:As a hands-on leader, we want to see how you've developed teams and driven projects. Share specific examples of how you've built high-performing teams and tackled complex challenges in your previous roles.
Be Clear and Concise:When writing your application, keep it straightforward. Use clear language and avoid jargon where possible. We appreciate directness and clarity, so make sure your key points stand out!
Apply Through Our Website:We encourage you to apply directly through our careers page. This ensures your application gets to the right people quickly. Plus, it’s the best way to stay updated on your application status!
How to prepare for a job interview at Airwallex
✨Know Your Tech Inside Out
As an Engineering Manager, you'll need to demonstrate a solid understanding of back-end engineering and risk management. Brush up on your knowledge of Java, distributed systems, and the technologies mentioned in the job description. Be ready to discuss how you've applied these skills in real-world scenarios.
✨Showcase Your Leadership Style
Airwallex values leaders who can coach and develop their teams. Prepare examples of how you've built high-performing teams, set goals, and fostered a culture of ownership and inclusion. Think about specific instances where you’ve turned zero-to-one ideas into successful products.
✨Understand the Business Impact
It's crucial to align technical direction with business goals. Be prepared to discuss how your engineering decisions have positively impacted business outcomes in previous roles. This shows that you think beyond just the code and understand the bigger picture.
✨Prepare for Collaboration Questions
Given the collaborative nature of the role, expect questions about working with cross-functional teams. Have examples ready that illustrate how you've successfully partnered with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to deliver results. Highlight your ability to remove blockers and ensure smooth communication.
