Data Platform Engineering Manager

About Airwallex Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 676,000 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. About the Team: The Knowledge Platform team is at the heart of our company's data and AI strategy. We are building the foundational infrastructure that empowers the entire company to leverage data, AI, and ML into business impact. We accomplish this by creating platforms that handle the entire data and AI/ML lifecycle, simplifying the interface while providing proper safety and governance. This includes managing our data infrastructure (Databricks, Spark, Kafka, etc.), the technology to serve that data to our users (RAG, MCP, etc.), and the platform to host and govern these AI/ML models. In 2026, our team’s overarching mission is to evolve our full data ecosystem—encompassing both platform and models—into a fully AI agent-ready infrastructure; we will empower customers to engage directly with the data platform to extract actionable value through capabilities like analytics and natural language querying, while also upgrading the platform to deliver robust, real-time performance for instant, data-driven decision-making. What you'll do As the Engineering Manager for Realtime Data Platform, a team within the Knowledge Platform, you will oversee large-scale, cross-functional initiatives that impact the entire data ecosystem. You will be responsible for defining the multi-year vision and technical roadmap for all real-time data analysis and serving needs, ensuring they are aligned with broader business objectives and product goals. A key aspect of your role will also include scaling the engineering teams, defining new roles, and establishing best practices for communication and collaboration across multiple sub-teams. Hiring Location: Singapore Responsibilities: Provide visionary technical leadership and define a clear 1-3 year strategic roadmap for the Realtime Data Platform. Lead the multi-year effort to modernize our core data platform, introducing real-time analytical processing at petabyte scale. Partner with product teams to enable new data-driven features, such as AI-powered applications or real-time dashboards, by ensuring the underlying platform capabilities are in place. Successfully scale and structure the engineering teams, including hiring new talent and mentoring managers and senior individual contributors. Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with product and other engineering teams, serving as a trusted technical advisor on all things Data and AI. 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 Requirements: A minimum of 8 years of experience in data or software engineering, with at least 3 years in a leadership or management role. Proven experience successfully managing and scaling an engineering team of 10+ people, including managers and senior individual contributors. Demonstrated ability to define and execute a technical strategy that led to a significant business outcome or operational improvement. Strong command of the data and softwa